


Fortunate Son

by RamboBrite



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben is a mess, Ben is the senators son, Drug Use, F/M, HEA Guaranteed, Loss of Virginity, Marijuana, Marriage of Convenience, Minor Character Death, Mud, Oral Sex, Panic Attack, Recreational Drugs, Reylo endgame, Smut, Strangers to Lovers, They smoke a comical amount of cigarettes, Vaginal Sex, Vietnam War, War flashbacks, Woodstock, Woodstock is a healing experience, acid trip, always go full el kabong, background Finn/Rose, ben had a real bad time in vietnam, ben really hates mud, but not at woodstock, but not from rey or ben, falling in love through the healing power of music, hippie!rey, infidelity maybe but not really, maybe a bad trip, rey goes full el kabong, rey is getting divorced, rey is in a fake marriage, sixties au, smut with plot, soldier!Ben, some period typical racism, some ptsd, survivor's guilt, there was so much mud, there were a lot of drugs kids, virgin ben, woodstock au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:27:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 45,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24218107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RamboBrite/pseuds/RamboBrite
Summary: Woodstock Music & Art Fair presents An Aquarian Exposition in White Lake, N.Y.3 Days of Peace & MusicAugust 15, 16, 17-----Ben Solo, freshly returned from the front lines of Vietnam, finds himself inexplicably in the company of someone the complete opposite of himself. Rey, a young hippie from California, is wild, playful and free-spirited. When she invites him to accompany her to a music festival in Bethel, he could never anticipate what he would find there. But can three days really change everything?
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 18
Kudos: 49





	1. Bad Moon Rising

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea rattling around in my brain for months now and I'm super excited to put the first chapter out there for everyone.
> 
> Please read the tags. I've tried to tag everything I can think of, but let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Major props to [jessavandangante](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessavandangante/works) for beta reading this and giving me encouragement that it wasn't a major trash heap. She's on [twitter](https://twitter.com/darthjessa) too.

_August 13, 1969_

_Somewhere in Upstate New York_

Ben Solo sat with his back against the concrete wall, eyes closed. The wooden bench he sat on made his ass ache, but he supposed that the county jail wasn’t exactly the place to find luxury accommodations. His jaw ached and the patches of rough skin on his knuckles and his lip stung like a bitch. He played absentmindedly with the box of matches that his jailors hadn’t confiscated when he’d been thrown in the drunk tank. Flicking it open and shut in an endless rhythm.

His quiet reflection was interrupted by the loud sounds of struggle and a female voice screeching. He tried to see what was causing the disturbance but couldn’t make out anything from his vantage point in the empty male cell. He could, however, start to hear the words that the girl was screaming.

“Fucking pigs, get your hands off me!” He could hear a loud grunt as one of the officers was assailed by the owner of said feminine voice.

“Jimmy you want to fucking help me?” Officer Antilles bellowed and then the sound of shuffling feet as Jimmy Robinson, a former classmate of Ben’s rushed across his sightline. The two officers managed to get control of the situation and then there was a loud clang and a female scream of frustration. “You can just stay in there, missy.”

“Dave, what happened to your face?” Jimmy asked, and Ben perked his ears to listen in; this was the most exciting thing to happen in the three hours he’d been locked up.

“Well she’s a goddamn — pardon my language, Jimmy — but she’s a goddamn savage,” David “Wedge” Antilles said hotly. “Scratched me up like wild cat. Fucking hippies, I swear.”

“Go fuck yourself!” the girl yelled, and Ben could hear the rattle of steel bars. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Come on, Dave, let’s get you patched up,” Jimmy could be heard saying and Antilles breathed out a loud, angry sigh before their footsteps retreated and the door to the outside opened and closed with a creaking noise.

The holding room was reduced once more to near silence, and Ben strained his ears to try to hear anything else coming from the female holding cell. He heard a creak of wood and clank of chains as she must undoubtedly be sitting on the worn wooden bench that matched his. Four inches of concrete separated them, and he heard her give out a sigh.

He couldn’t help himself; he was going out of his mind with boredom in here and spoke up, “Rough day?”

He heard a little gasp; apparently, she’d thought she was alone in here and he’d startled her. She recovered quickly enough and said with an edge to her voice, “You have no idea.”

“I might; I don’t generally make a habit of spending the night in jail,” he quipped, and she let out a little laugh. He liked the sound of it as it tinkled off the walls of the jail.

“So, what are you in here for?” she asked, and now that she wasn’t screaming, he could hear that she had an accent. He’d heard something similar on American Bandstand from the likes of the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. British, he surmised.

“I, uh, I decked a guy,” Ben said, still feeling a bit raw. It wasn’t really his fault, he thought. Ben had gotten into an argument with his parents. They had been overbearing since the second he’d stepped off the plane two days ago, and he felt suffocated and had told them both as much. Especially after the freedoms as they were that he’d enjoyed under Uncle Sam’s watchful eye. In true fashion his mother had chided him like he was still a child and his father had huffed but hadn’t exactly intervened either. He’d lost his temper with both of them and stormed out, not bothering to even take his car; the Cantina was walking distance from their house after all. But of course, this explosive exchange was exactly what the local papers had been counting on when they’d caught wind that Ben was leaving Vietnam. The guy was some reporter type who wanted a glimpse of the senator’s son, fresh home from the war, and catching him alone, trying to calm down over a pint of beer was like being given Christmas early. To be fair, Ben _had_ tried to get rid of him nicely…at first, and then the prick had commented on the bright pink scar that traipsed down from one corner of his face to the other and attempted to get a picture. That had been enough bullshit to deal with for one night, and Ben had been just drunk enough to clock him. Ben hadn’t anticipated that he’d have friends and that’s how he’d caused a bar brawl on a Wednesday night in quiet Coruscant. The cops, many of whom he’d grown up with, had apprehended him then and had apologized to him, but still pressed him firmly face first into the hood of their cop car and cuffed him.

“Very descriptive,” the girl replied after Ben’s incredibly brief summation. “Are you always this articulate?”

“My story isn’t that exciting,” Ben retorted, not feeling like getting into the particulars of his complicated home life with a total stranger. “Yours on the other hand. That sounds like something worth hearing.”

She laughed at this and he smirked from his seat in the cell. “I would tell you, but first… do you know who a girl has to kill in this place to get a light? I tell a much better story that way.”

“They let you keep your smokes?” he asked, disbelief in his voice.

“They didn’t bother to search me,” she said, her tone full of mischievous glee. “I think they just wanted to be shot of me.”

“Well, I think we make a good pair,” Ben laughed. “You’ve got smokes, I’ve got matches. So, let’s start a fire.”

“So, we have a trade then?” the girl confirmed. Ben responded by pulling a match out of the box and reaching his long arm around to bring it into what he hoped was her sight. He was rewarded by the feel of a small hand touching his, gently taking the match and placing a soft tube into his large hand. She curled his fingers around it so he wouldn’t lose it and he felt a heat reach his cheeks. He was thankful she couldn’t see him as he retracted his hand. He heard the soft sound of the match striking the wall of her cell and then the sound of her taking a long drag.

He lit up his own and then contorted his face in disgust. “Ah, hell. You smoke menthols?”

“If you don’t want it, give it back,” she shot back, but there was no heat to it.

Ben tucked one of his long legs to his chest on the bench and sighed, “Fuck it, my night can’t get much worse. Might as well add menthols to the list. So, you were going to tell me how you got in here, right?”

“I was going to before you insulted my gift,” the girl replied. “Now, I don’t know if I’m feeling very talkative.”

“Aw, come on,” he pleaded. “There’s nothing else to do in here. Trust me.”

He thought he could hear the smile in her words as she said, “Fine, but no more insulting my taste.”

“Fine,” he readily agreed to her demand, “Now come on, don’t leave me on the edge of my fucking seat. What happened?”

She cleared her throat and it took her a while to start speaking. “I wasn’t lying you know. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was, erm, I was just trying to play for tips on the street corner.”

“The cops picked you up for that?” Ben asked, incredulous. He knew the police force in this small town was conservative, but it’s not like this was the first time they’d had people busking for change.

“No,” she started, her voice shifting and growing uncomfortable. “Some prick came and started giving me a hard time. He tried to-to…. touch me…while I was playing my guitar. He tried to offer me money to come with him,” she sniffed angrily. “So….”

“So?” Ben prodded, sitting up in his seat now. He didn’t know exactly why her story started to fill him with a quiet rage.

“So, I smashed my guitar over his sodding head,” she finished. “The pigs showed up not long after, and they wouldn’t even listen to me or to my friends.” There was a resentful edge to her voice that frankly he shared.

“Do you know his name?” Ben asked lowly, a quiet anger gripping him, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if she had heard him.

“No, I’m not exactly from around here,” the girl replied with a bitter laugh.

“What are you doing here?” Ben asked and she took a breath to answer but was interrupted by the sound of the door slamming open and the sound of Dave “Wedge” Antilles voice ringing out.

“Solo, you made bail,” the older man barked as he came over and unlocked the door of the cell. Ben blinked stupidly at him. He got up and stretched his long legs as Antilles impatiently beckoned for him. Wedge looked Ben over, the contraband cigarette still hanging from his lips and scoffed, before leading him past the adjacent cell. “Hop to it, boy.” Ben stubbed out the half-smoked menthol and tucked it into his front shirt pocket before moving just a bit quicker to appease the old man.

Ben quickly glanced over as he moved toward the door and saw the girl. She had chestnut brown hair that hung to her waist, tan skin, a cropped long sleeve shirt that exposed her midriff and high waisted bell bottom jeans. She looked every bit the hippie that Wedge had described, but Ben couldn’t help but be stunned by her wild beauty.

Her gaze was trained on his face, possibly equally as fascinated with his features as he was with hers, but the moment ended abruptly when Antilles turned him around with a firm grip on his shoulder and started, “Listen, Solo, just because I know your parents don’t think you can come home and cause trouble. I don’t know how they do it over in Saigon, but in Coruscant we have rules. I thank you for your service, son, but keep it clean from now on.”

The girl’s expression changed at Antilles mention of Ben’s service in the army. Suddenly where she had been curious, her brow furrowed into a scowl that seared into him with ferocity. “You didn’t say you were a fucking baby killer.”

“Quiet you,” Antilles said sharply, kicking at the bars. He turned back to Ben and said while flicking a thumb over his shoulder, “Can you believe this? We’ve been practically overrun by their kind the last few days. Animals, I tell you.”

Ben was speechless at the girl’s sudden change of demeanor and wanted to say something but was ushered out by the police officer before he could defend himself to her. He walked down the concrete hallway and when he emerged into the waiting room of the jail, sparsely furnished with laminate benches, he saw his father waiting for him. He tried not to look ungrateful at the man — after all he _had_ saved him from a bench that probably would leave bruises on his ass tomorrow — but he was still upset with both of his parents.

He sullenly walked over and his father, very much like himself, walked wordlessly out of the station to the 1957 Chevrolet 3100, silver paint shimmering under the lights of the dim parking lot. The two burly men got into the car, making it look practically like a toy with their combined height and Ben sat back, resting his head against the glass behind him. His father with a low noise in the back of his throat, signaling his discomfort, pulled out the pack of Marlboro Reds from his shirt pocket and slipped one between his lips and held the box out to his son. Ben took one, imitating his father, and then Han was pulling out the black lighter he’d received during his own service in Germany. There was something intimate in this moment that almost let Ben take his guards down, but he still held back. Finally, the cab filling up with the acrid scent of tobacco smoke, Han cranked the window down and looked at his son.

“Your mother’s upset,” Han stated, no emotion filling his blunt tone as he blew a pillar of smoke out the open window. Ben might have felt abashed at this but given the circumstances that had landed him in the county jail, he chose to remain unrepentant. Finally, some emotion half between anger and sadness spilled into his father’s voice and Ben looked at him, watching the corners of his grizzled mouth tug down in a grimace. “Christ, Ben, you just got home yesterday. She thought you had died when that messenger came, and then when they finally release you, you get arrested.”

Ben was silent and just continued to drag on the cigarette. He flicked it out the window when it was down to the filter and felt like a petulant child under his father’s stare. “Can we go now?”

His father grumbled and then bit out, “Yeah, but _you_ can apologize to your mother. She’s the one who wanted to bail you out. I thought you could use some time to get your head straight.” Ben didn’t respond, instead choosing to continue staring stubbornly ahead of himself. The drive back to their house was long, despite only being a few miles away, and it was only made longer by the silence that the pair sat in. It gave Ben time to reflect though. His thoughts drifted back to that hippie girl, her hair a tangle around her shoulders as that fascinated near smile melted into a look of disgust. It probably shouldn’t piss him off so much, but after the entire fiasco of a night he’d had, it just started to swell in his gut; anger at her, his parents, the entire fucking Vietnam War comingling inside of him. She was just another face in the endless array of people judging him and his choices. They’d been getting on so well, but as soon as she knew that he was a soldier, none of that seemed to matter.

* * *

_August 14, 1969_

Ben was pacing. He’d been pacing for an hour now, maybe longer. Time felt irrelevant. The feelings he’d experienced the previous night hadn’t dissipated and now were reaching a fever pitch. His mind kept wandering back to her face, the feel of her hands around his, her laugh, and how she’d called him a “fucking baby killer”. What the fuck did she know? She had no idea. She was probably just some soft college girl who had no fucking idea what it was like to be in the jungle, sweat dripping down your back, your neck, your fucking balls, and then suddenly to have the entire ground beneath you erupt with bullets. She didn’t know what it was like to see men you’d been laughing with about what chow they’d have when they got back to mess, how it was probably burnt _again,_ suddenly fall down covered in blood, eyes lifeless and glassy. He was like a chimney as he paced, and he roughly crushed another butt into the glass ashtray on his childhood desk.

He looked at the time, _seven_ , and an impulse stole over him. Before he could extinguish it, let cooler heads prevail, he was grabbing his leather jacket and storming down the hallway of his parents’ home. He dashed past his mother, reading the paper, without a word. He had stiffly apologized to her the previous night, but still couldn’t bring himself to face her in earnest. He snatched the keys to his black Bonneville from the hook by the door and took off, tires practically squealing as he drove back to the jail. He got there in record time, slammed the door behind him and paced a bit more to bring down his racing heart. He ran a hand roughly through his hair, another over the shark skin of his five ‘o clock shadow. Then he made his way into the jail and went to the counter.

“Oh, Ben,” the timid form of Dopheld Mitaka seemed to quaver as he beheld Ben’s mammoth form towering over him. Mitaka had been a couple years behind Ben in school and had always been simultaneously intimidated and in awe of him. “I didn’t know you were back. What can I do you for?”

“The girl,” he said gruffly, not in the mood to mince words or exchange pleasantries.

“Girl?” the hesitant answer came back.

“Yeah, the one from last night. She still here?” Ben practically barked it out, and Mitaka shrunk in his seat, possibly not the kind of man you’d want as a police officer. But recognition seemed to come over his features and he looked over his logs, clearing his throat.

“We do still have one Mrs. Storm in custody,” Mitaka said nervously. _Mrs?_ Ben thought ruefully. She was married? Why was she still in here if she had a husband? He didn’t try to draw that line of questioning out any further, instead turning his attention back to the clerk.

“How much is her bail?”

Mitaka looked surprised by this, but quickly began to rifle through the papers in front of him. He cleared his throat and said, “Uh, fifty dollars.”

Ben fished his wallet out, licking his finger as he extracted two twenties and a ten from his billfold and slammed them onto the counter in front of the man. Dopheld didn’t look like he quite knew what to do at first but pulled the money from under the glass and nodded meekly. He stood up and with a jangle of keys, went through the side entrance into the holding cells. Ben could hear the echoes of “Storm, you’ve made bail,” in Mitaka’s reedy voice as the door swung shut behind him.

He tried to control his pacing, not sure what exactly to do with his hands, currently balled at his sides. The door leading to that back corridor swung open and the girl emerged, looking perhaps a scratch more tired than the previous night. She’d probably had to sleep on those godawful benches, Ben thought. There was a stunned look on her face at first and then her eyes narrowed at the sight of him.

“You came back.” The words were matter-of-fact, and somehow it roiled Ben’s stomach even further.

“Yeah, I did,” he shot back, and he couldn’t help the clenching and unclenching of his fists.

“Why?” Her tone was wary as she contemplated him, standing there full of nervous, angry energy.

“I-I…I’m not a baby killer!” he practically shouted, but she didn’t flinch. “I wanted to tell you that. I’m…. I’m not.” The sudden release of energy left his head reeling and she was silent for some time.

“Ok, well you told me. Now what?” Her question caught him off guard, because he hadn’t really thought about what he would do _after_ he told her, he had only been consumed with the thought that he needed her to know. Now, he wasn’t sure. She sighed, looking tired, “I’m hungry.”

“What?” he asked dumbly.

She looked like she was running low on patience with him, “I said, I’m hungry. In case you still wanted to keep yelling at me, I thought we could do it with coffee…and pancakes.”

“Oh,” he replied, fumbling over himself now. He hadn’t really thought this far ahead. She walked past him out the door of the jail and he practically tripped in his haste to follow her.

She took a look around the parking lot and then back at him. “Which one is yours?”

“Uh, this one,” Ben said, finding himself anxious now, all the anger having gone out of him. He walked over to his car and she looped around to the passenger seat expectantly. The car wasn’t locked, and after ascertaining as much she pulled open the door and slid in as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She reclined in the large seat, sinking down into the leather with her eyes closed.

“So. Pancakes.”

* * *

Ben pulled into Maz’s Diner, cranking the wheel under his large hands and looked over at his new companion. He was still reeling slightly that she was in his car and for her part she didn’t _seem_ angry with him like she had the night before. He turned off the car and looked over at her, but she was already exiting the car. He pocketed his keys and got out, the car door creaking and the frame swaying as he pulled himself out onto the gravel.

It wasn’t until they were seated in a booth by the window, the chrome paneling of the diner shining in the morning sun that he looked at her and started, “So.”

“So,” she responded in kind. When he didn’t offer any conversation in return she sighed and rubbed her temples, the dark circles under her eyes more prominent. “You bailed me out. Surely you had a _plan_?”

“Uhhh,” he hemmed, and she arched a brow at him, amusement on her face now.

“So, what you’re telling me is that you came back and paid my bail, just to what exactly? Yell at me for insulting you?” When she put it that way it sounded ludicrous and he couldn’t help the heat that flushed his cheeks and tinged at the tops of his ears.

He was interrupted from answering (thankfully) by the loud booming voice of the wizened old lady who owned the diner. Maz herself came out from behind the counter after having spotted the pair of them and yelled out, “Ben Solo!” The next thing he knew he was being pelted with a wooden spoon.

“Ow, fuck-“ another slap of the spoon, harder for his language, “Maz, stop!”

“You stupid boy,” Maz chastised him, holding the spoon out threateningly. “You come back, Maz doesn’t even get to see you, and then I find out from Wedge Antilles that you’re getting yourself locked up in jail?”

“Would you stop?” Ben replied, attempting to snatch the spoon from her hand, but only succeeding in getting a smart rap to his knuckles. He shook his hand out and glared at the little old lady who he’d known his entire life. “Can we just order, Maz?”

Maz perked up at his _we_ and looked over at the girl for the first time. Her angry expression dropped, all charm now, “Well hello, dear. Who might you be?”

“I’m Rey,” she volunteered, a smile on her face as she pushed a long strand of brown hair behind her ear. She leaned on her hands and sweetly asked, “Would it be possible to get some coffee?” Maz nodded congenially, forgetting to continue chastising Ben, and bustled off in search of a carafe.

When they were alone, or as alone as you could be in Maz’s Diner during the breakfast rush, Ben turned to look at this girl again. He cleared his throat and then, “So your name is Rey?”

“And yours is Ben, if I’m not mistaken?” she responded, holding out her hand. He gingerly took it in his own, swallowing it up in his large grip as he gave it a light shake. “So, is this your normal strategy for picking up girls, Ben?”

His throat was dry as she made unwavering eye contact and he noticed in the sunlight that her eyes were a particularly stunning hue of hazel. “Uh, I wasn’t trying to-“

“Sure, you weren’t.” She sounded unconvinced, her electric smile only growing wider. “No, you came back to chastise me, correct? Well, consider me thoroughly scolded.”

He couldn’t think of anything to say in response, and just blurted, “You didn’t tell me you were married.”

She considered him after the statement in silence for a moment, long enough for Maz to come back and pour coffee into their mugs. She turned to the lady and said, “Can I get a short stack of pancakes please? And maybe some hash browns?” Maz nodded, scribbling the order on her pad of paper before looking at Ben expectantly.

“Uh, eggs. Over easy. Bacon-“

“Burnt,” Maz finished, giving him a wink. “Same order as always, I see.” He nodded and then they were alone again.

“If you must know,” Rey said, and this conversation was practically giving Ben whiplash from the interruptions, “I’m soon to be divorced.”

“You what?” he responded, incredulous. She sighed and pulled out folded letter from inside of her shirt, stuffed inside of her bra he assumed, which only served to send more heat to his face. She pushed it across the table to him, and Ben felt that perhaps he shouldn’t read this letter. Curiosity got the better of him, however and he unfolded the worn paper. Inside was a photograph of a black man in fatigues standing with his arm around a small Vietnamese woman, both with smiles on their faces.

“That’s my husband,” Rey said. “Or ex-husband as the case may be.”

Ben’s brain was short circuiting as he tried to process the information that she was divulging. “Do you want to explain that to me?” Rey’s mouth quirked into a smile at his question, but she merely proceeded to pour cream into her coffee and shake a sugar packet between her fingers before ripping open the paper seal. Her spoon clinked noisily as she stirred the hot beverage.

“Coffee first,” she responded finally, taking the mug to her lips and inhaling deeply. She took a tentative sip and smacked her lips appreciatively. “I’ve had rather a long night, as you can imagine.”

He waited patiently and she looked up at him, wry amusement still evident on her face. “So, you’re wanting to know more about me, I assume?”

“Well, yeah,” Ben responded.

“So, you _are_ always this articulate. Interesting,” she responded, and he felt like it had been much easier to talk to her when she was concealed behind a concrete wall. “But you see, Ben, while I certainly appreciate your help, it would appear that you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. I think you owe it to me to rectify that.” He stammered and she continued, “I know next to nothing about you, and you know quite a bit about me. So, I think, before I tell you another thing, you’ll answer my own questions.”

He was taken aback by her saccharine directness and managed to get out, “Okay. What-what did you want to know?”

“Well, first, to level the playing field a bit, why do you care so much what I think about you?” he moved to protest, but she held up her finger to silence him, “And don’t bother denying it. You don’t bail someone out like _this_ if you don’t care. So, why? I think I deserve to know why I’m sitting here taking advantage of your generosity instead of in that bloody jail cell.”

She looked at him intently, and Ben knew there was no way for him to wheedle out of telling her, so he stared resolutely into his coffee as if trying to will the words from its vapor. “Well, I…Last night, when we talked, it was like….I don’t know, you _saw_ me or something. Just me, not,” he gestured vaguely, “whoever the fuck everyone thinks I need to be. And then afterwards you looked at me like I was some kind of _monster_ , and I just….I couldn’t stand it, okay?” He finished firmly, perhaps a little too firmly and there was a fire in his eyes now daring her to challenge him.

“Who does everyone think you need to be?” she pressed, boring into him with those eyes, so inquisitive. There was no trace of the former animosity she had harbored, and it made it easier to say.

“You don’t know?” Ben joked, and she looked at him with a puzzled expression before shaking her head.

“Sorry, mate. I have no idea who you are.”

He still struggled to put words to the feelings that had swelled in him over the course of his upbringing, his time in the military and his incredibly brief time back in Coruscant. “My mom is…well she’s kind of this big deal around here, and since I was a kid, it was like everyone expected me to be just like her. No one actually saw me; they just saw her. And I thought the army would be liberating, somehow. Because no one gives a fuck who you are. But there it was just like they only saw me as a weapon. And the people only saw me as a killer or an intruder. But I didn’t fucking kill anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me first!” he stressed this part, needing her to understand, and was that sympathy her in her eyes? “And then I come back, and it’s like now they expect me to be some fucking war hero or some shit. And I’m not.” His hands involuntarily went up to touch his face, and Rey’s eyes flickered to the raw scar over his brow before meeting his whiskey hued gaze.

“Well, Ben, if you’re not your mother, and you’re not a murderer, or a war hero, who _are_ you then?” The question was so straightforward, but how the fuck was he supposed to answer? Words were failing him and all he could do was keep looking at her. The moment was interrupted by Maz bustling over and setting their food in front of them, startling both of them back into reality.

He looked away, trying to still his heart that had inexplicably started to hammer in his chest and then ferociously began to attack his plate. Rey had equal enthusiasm for her pancakes, and she ate in much the same way he’d seen men do in the mess hall, like she didn’t know when her next meal would be or where she would find it. It seemed like a good time, when she wasn’t drilling into him with those eyes, to bring the conversation away from himself again.

“So, why are you getting a divorce anyway?” In this day and age, it was scandalous, practically unheard of to get one. But then again, with her long hair, her mouth that could probably make some men in his company blush, and the way she clearly didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of her, was it any wonder that she didn’t care about what the Ladies’ Club of Coruscant thought of the state of her marriage? “Is it because he’s in country?”

She chewed thoughtfully now on a bite of pancakes and stirred the tines of her forks in the sea of maple syrup collected on her plate. “No, it’s not because of that. He got drafted and…he didn’t have a choice but to go. Besides, he’s not my husband in the _traditional_ sense.” Ben looked at her skeptically. There was _nothing_ traditional about this girl, to be sure, but how exactly could you get married and then say things like this?

“Come again?” he voiced his skepticism and was surprised to find a shy smile on her face.

“I don’t love Finn, well not in that way at least. He’s my best mate, but we’re not…that way. He married me to keep me in the country, and now…well they can’t get rid of me now, can they?” she smirked. “Besides, you should have seen the look on the clerk’s face when she had to give us our marriage license. That was the best part.”

“So, you’re getting divorced then?” he repeated, the pieces of this girl starting to fall into place around him.

“That’s what I said, yeah,” Rey replied, “I told him that if he ever found _someone_ — someone he actually wanted to be with — that we’d call this whole thing off. I’m a citizen now, anyway, so even if I keep getting arrested, there’s nothing they can do.”

“Do you do that a lot?” Ben asked, and she looked at him funny until he added, “Get arrested that is.”

“How much is a lot?” she asked, playfully evading his question. “And I believe that it’s your turn anyway, Ben. So, what happened…there?” Rey gestured to her face and he got the gist of her question. It wasn’t something he really liked to think about though. And hadn’t he just given a haymaker to the last person who’d commented on his newest facial feature? There was something about Rey though, in the unassuming way that she questioned him that eased his mind and made it easier (although not easy enough, unfortunately) to go back to that grizzly place that haunted his mind.

How much could he really tell her though? She who had looked at him with disgust just for knowing that he’d signed his soul over to Uncle Sam? He settled for some form of the truth, and started, “Shrapnel. From a mortar shell. Damn near lost my eye. But you know what they say, God bless America.” His tone was bitter as he traced the line that snaked its way across his forehead and down the side of his cheek. He’d done this so many times in the mirror after getting the stitches out, and his fingers found the groove like a car on a familiar roadway. The first time his mother had seen him had been two days ago when they’d picked him up from Griffis Air Base and to her credit she’d really _tried_ not to cry at seeing him. He didn’t really consider himself handsome, and he had always been a bit self-conscious of his nose, but the scar leant him a threatening air that he’d never possessed before. He was lost in his own thoughts when he heard Rey clear her throat. He was almost sheepish as he came back to himself. Almost. “Sorry, I, uh, don’t like talking about it. Anyway,” he said changing the subject, “You said you’re not from around here. What’s a British girl doing in bumfuck Coruscant?”

She looked at him with an odd expression and then started, “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard about what?” he groused, “I just got back home two days ago.”

She smiled at this revelation, her eyes sparkling, and he couldn’t help but be entranced. “There’s a music festival. It’s supposed to be this big celebration of peace. We came all the way from California,” she explained, and then looked at him with an expression as if she was trying to puzzle him out. “You could come, you know. If you wanted to.”

Ben was taken aback by the offer from a girl he’d known less than a day. “Why would you invite me?”

She leaned forward over the table between them with a sly smile. “Call it a feeling. You seem nice, and I _think_ I like you. So, is that a yes?”

He waffled about the prospect of going to this hotbed of protesters. He’d seen the way that they’d swarmed around the airbase as he left in his father’s truck, seen the signs that echoed Rey’s previous sentiments about him…but he’d also fought alongside kids who held the same ideas about peace and love, even while smoke choked their lungs in the humid jungle. He hesitated, “I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s really my scene. But…thanks, I guess.” She shrugged, unperturbed, and he pulled his wallet out once again, tucking a five under his coffee mug.

“It was just an offer,” Rey said, her smile a bit sad for just a fleeting moment. She stood up and took him in, “Well, if it’s not too much trouble, Ben Solo, would you mind terribly helping me to find my friends? Then I’ll be on my way and out of your hair.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said, embarrassed now for what reason he couldn’t say. He ran his hand through his hair and gestured for her to proceed him in that universal sign of _‘Ladies First’._ She smirked a bit and instead of walking out the door ahead of him, sidled beside him and threaded her arm through his. He felt himself grow flustered at her nearness and suddenly the diner felt too warm in a way that had nothing to do with the August heat. The pair walked in this fashion back to his Bonneville before she disentangled herself from his arm.

The car was sweltering already, the sun starting to shine overhead in earnest. Ben’s air conditioning was unfortunately broken, but his radio was not. He turned it on to distract them both from the humid air that was starting to make sweat collect at the nape of his neck under his mane of dark hair. The rumbling voice warbled out a tune he’d heard enough times in the hospital recently and he didn’t move the dial. _‘Hand touching hand, reaching out, touching me touching you….’_

Ben was surprised to hear Rey sing out the chorus, a fluttering soprano above the voice of Neil Diamond. He looked over at her for a moment and she merely smiled and shrugged. He cleared his throat and said, “So, where are we going anyway?”

She scrunched up her face in concentration and his eyes drank her in greedily. “Well, I don’t think they would have gone far. So maybe we should go back to where….” She trailed off, and that same feeling of discontented anger bubbled inside him again as he recalled exactly what had put her in jail.

“So where?” he pressed, attempting to distract his thoughts.

“I think we were downtown?” she looked uncertain, but he wheeled the car down a small road toward the center of the tiny town. Truth be told, he never really cared for Coruscant. He’d grown up here, but it was a smaller stop on the way to better destinations. Before he’d joined the army, he’d thought about settling in the City permanently. The noise of the subway, the constant movement of the people, and the stink of the sewers were all infinitely better in his mind than the perfectly manicured matching homes of Coruscant. But there was something in the way that Rey stared out the window that made him take a second look.

They arrived on the quaint and happy little main drag and Rey perked up as she began to recognize their surroundings. “Ooh, there, that’s where I was.” She pointed at the corner of Main and Division and he sidled his car over to the curb and let the engine die down and shudder to a halt. Rey practically leapt out and approached the brick façade that she’d busked against. Ben noticed there were still fragments of guitar strewn on the sidewalk if he’d had any doubts about the veracity of her tale. Rey led him around the area as the sun beat down across his back, forcing him to remove his leather jacket and sling it over his shoulder.

After an hour of aimless wandering, they’d covered the downtown strip twice and Rey collapsed on the lip of the fountain that bubbled merrily in the center of Coruscant. She put her head in her hands dejectedly and Ben sat beside her, not sure whether he could put his arm around her to comfort her or not. He settled for a tepid pat on the shoulder and she looked up at him. “I have no idea where they are. They just…left me.”

He had a pained expression and tried to think of something to say but came up short. He opened and closed his mouth as words failed him and was spared from having to make any meaningful reply when she plunged her hand into his. Ben looked at her fingers interlacing around his noticeably larger ones and swallowed, his throat bobbing conspicuously. He was not charming, he never had been and was probably even less so after two years of fighting for his life, but somehow this girl wasn’t running in the opposite direction. It reminded him of one patrol in particular where he’d had to wade in water that was up to _his_ chest, let alone the chests of the men who weren’t blessed with his height. He’d been off balance in the muck, unable to grasp at solid footing. Rey, on the other hand, caught him off guard in the best way.

“Come on,” he said then, an idea occurring to him. He tightened his grip around her hand, catching the smell of her on the air. She didn’t smell like how he thought a hippie should smell, thoughts of patchouli and sandalwood coming to mind, instead she smelled like an intoxicating combination of peaches and wildflowers. Ben stood and pulled Rey to her feet. “Let me buy you a coke and then we can keep looking.” She sniffled slightly and then nodded.

The walk to the only gas station in Coruscant was uneventful, but beautiful in its own way. He felt a bit like he was in high school as Rey swung their entwined hands back and forth. Her palm was soft and warm under his rather more calloused hand. He could see her sneaking glances at him out of his periphery. He had been awkward and gangling still when he’d left for basic training and had never imagined a girl or woman looking at him like this, but three years in the military had hardened the edges of him. Now at twenty-six, and fresh out of the army, he was broad planes and firm muscle.

They fell into easy conversation as they walked. Talking with her about trivial subjects felt almost as easy as breathing. Maybe because she didn’t know his backstory or his entire family history like everyone in this damn town. She just saw Ben.

“You seriously don’t remember the landing? It was less than a month ago,” she decried as he admitted that he hadn’t paid much attention to the world shattering first man on the moon. Not that he had purposely missed it, of course.

“What do you want from me? I was pretty hopped up on morphine at the time,” he joked and stopped himself before he delved too far into his war experience. Clearing his throat, he tried to imperceptibly steer the conversation back to safer waters. “Besides, I don’t much see the point of it all.”

“You don’t see the point of going out and reaching the stars? Going where no one else has been before?” she asked, disbelieving. “I mean we put a man on the moon, for God’s sake.”

He shrugged; they’d reached the gas station. No one was behind the register currently, Ben absently thought. He wandered with Rey still clutching at his hand to the back coolers, where he procured a couple of glass bottles, sweating in the heat. “I don’t know. It just seems kind of…unnecessary? We’re spending all this time trying to go anywhere but here, but it’s a big fucking planet. Feels like we’re trying to spread the issues elsewhere instead of actually dealing with them.”

“Hmm, not exactly what I’d expect a chauvinist war monger to say,” she remarked offhandedly.

He gritted his teeth. She was joking, and there was none of that hostility she’d shown the previous night, but it still stung him. “Yeah, well, I’m full of surprises, aren’t I? I’m not a _‘chauvinist war monger’_ by the way. It’s not my fucking war. I didn’t start it.” She seemed to be reveling in pushing his buttons and he was gratifying her. She held her hands up in mock surrender and he dropped the argument that had been brewing.

“I know. So, you were telling me how unnecessary you think space travel is?”

He recalled himself as they walked up to the register and he set the two glass bottles down on the counter. Still no one in sight. “Well, it feels like we’re trying so hard to find intelligent life out there, but I don’t know. We’re gonna spend, what thirty billion fucking dollars to find it, but you don’t see _them_ spending that much to find _us._ Maybe there is intelligent life out there, but it’s not fucking here. _”_ She laughed at his joke, a true laugh and he felt himself wanting to do or say anything that would make her repeat that intoxicating sound. Suddenly the noise stopped, caught in her throat and he looked over at her in alarm. Rey’s face was melting into one of horror for a moment then one of hardened, steely anger.

“Solo,” a harsh male voice was directed at him and he looked up to see Gannis Ducain behind the counter. He’d never liked Ducain, ever since he was a child and his father would bring him along while he verbally sparred with the man over car parts. Ducain was cheat and everyone knew it. But Ducain was also an inevitability in Coruscant since he owned the only gas station in town. “We don’t serve her fucking kind here. Hippie trash.” He spat the next line at Rey, and a few things occurred to Ben as he looked from the man to the girl next to him.

First, Rey, despite her angry expression had a glint in her eyes like a scared rabbit. He’d seen the same look on the face of a freshly minted FNG in country. She had bravado, sure, but she was terrified of Ducain. Second, Ducain had a large set of bruises covering the majority of the left side of his face. The skin there was mottled and black, a few scratches comingling. It all looked incredibly fresh. While he wouldn’t past Ducain to get himself into a brawl, it was the third thing that gave Ben a sense of surety to his conjecture. And that was that Rey had already told him she didn’t know anyone in this town, that she had only come in the day before from three thousand miles away, but there was recognition in her eyes at the sight of this angry looking man. He only needed to glance at her for confirmation. He didn’t know where this protective urge was coming from, but he moved in front of Rey instinctually, pushing her behind his broad form.

“Listen, we’re just here to buy something to drink and we’ll be on our way,” Ben replied, not breaking eye contact as he looked into the man’s flinty gaze. His voice was level, but betrayed a current of barely contained anger.

“Oho, _we_ is it?” Ducain said, letting out a derisive laugh. “Well than you _and_ your little commie bitch can both get the fuck out of my store. We don’t serve your kind here.” The man spat on the floor of the gas station, making clear that he was not one for making idle threats.

“Ben,” Rey breathed, barely audible as blood throbbed in his temples. He clenched his fists as she put a gentle hand on his arm. “Let’s just go.” There was something to the touch that brought him back to earth, grounded him. Ducain was trash, but he wasn’t worth spending a night in the county jail. His parents would definitely not bail him out a second time. He nodded at her imperceptibly and turned to leave. They could just use the fucking drinking fountain at this point.

“That’s what I thought, get the fuck out of here,” Ducain called out, and then to Rey, “He probably left his balls in Saigon along with the other half of his face. Find me when you’re done with that limp dick, and maybe I’ll spread those legs and let you make it up to me. I bet your pu-”

Ben had heard worse, from people he might consider friends on a good day even, and if Ducain was only speaking to _him_ like this, he probably would have refrained from his next course of action. But, as it was, hearing Ducain talk to Rey, and knowing that he had gotten her arrested for refusing his advances sent Ben over a proverbial cliff. His hand seemed to draw back of its own accord, and after the briefest of pauses he swiveled on his heel and sent his long arm over the counter and straight into Ducain’s nose, which if it hadn’t been broken the day before certainly was now, cutting off the man’s vulgar tirade mid-word. The blow knocked him onto the ground where he lay still.

Ben’s face must mirror the same shock as Rey’s, and his brain took a moment of ringing silence before it caught up to his fist. He processed only the most rudimentary of plans and looked at her with one word on his lips. “Run.”

Rey didn’t need telling twice, but he reached out and found her hand all the same. She didn’t resist and then he was pulling her out of the store. Their cokes were forgotten and sweating rings on the counter behind them as Ducain groaned on the floor, coming to. They were launching themselves from the store and he had no idea where they should go. They could run to his car, maybe make it to his parents’ house, but then Ducain would just send the police there for him. _Shit, shit, shit._

Then he was being tugged into a different direction by Rey. His eyes lighted on an orange and white microbus that was just pulling into the gas pump. He couldn’t think of any better plan so followed her lead as she wrenched the sliding door open, both of them tumbling inside in a heap.

The driver, an olive-complected man who might be Ben’s own age, looked startled by the sudden appearance of two people in the back of his vehicle. This surprise didn’t, however, stop him from shifting the bus back in gear and slamming on the gas in a squeal of tires when Rey cried out, “Go, now!”  
  


It took a minute for Ben’s breathing to come back down to normal and Rey was looking at him funny. He gathered that Rey knew the owner of the large vehicle he was currently traveling in as the man started to hurl an aggravated interrogation into the back seat.

“Rey, where the fuck have you been? We went to go bail you out, but the pigs said you weren’t there. We’ve been cruising around this hick town looking for you all goddamn morning.”

“I was busy,” Rey shot back.

“Yeah, I see that,” the man said, a cigarette bobbing between his lips. He didn’t say anything more, more or less accepting this interesting turn of events, but there was a look of unsated curiosity in his eyes as he met Ben’s gaze in the rearview mirror.


	2. Travelin' Band

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their run in with Ducain, our merry band of misfits makes their way to Woodstock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again a big thank you to [jessavandangante](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessavandangante/works) for beta reading this. She's on [twitter](https://twitter.com/darthjessa) too.
> 
> She has a pretty neat Hercules AU she's writing currently.

_August 14, 1969_

“I’m going camping for a few days,” Ben said into the receiver of the payphone. They had stopped at a gas station about twenty minutes from Coruscant, the tank of the microbus running on fumes. The first thing Ben needed to do was keep his mother from launching a manhunt for him. She had the contacts to make that a very real possibility.

“Camping. Camping?” He could tell his mother didn’t believe him as she repeated the word, turning it over as if to gain new meaning with each reprise. She sighed heavily before continuing, “Who do you know who goes camping, Benjamin?”

“Just some…friends,” he responded evasively. “I need some time to…clear my head.”

“You’ll be back for the fundraiser on Sunday though, right?” she asked worriedly, and he grimaced at the vague recollection. His mother had probably suggested it in passing, in the way that she suggested a lot of things that he was eventually forced to do.

“Yeah, sure, mom,” he said flippantly, wanting to end the conversation. “Fundraiser. Sounds…great.”

“Ben-“ his mother started, but he hung up before she could start on one of her infamous lectures.

“Well, that sounded like it went well,” Rey chirped happily at his shoulder and he jumped at her sudden appearance.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, and the corners of her mouth tugged up, eventually spilling over into a laugh at his surprise. He found himself chuckling too despite himself. “Yeah, great. Wonderful.” There was a dry humor in his voice as he brought himself down enough to respond.

“If that’s your definition of great, I don’t think I want to know what actually upsets you,” she teased.

“No. You wouldn’t.” The response was flat, and the smile left her eyes at his words. She cleared her throat and he looked away, feeling self-conscious now. He’d done nothing it seemed but unload his issues onto this girl today. “Sorry…I shouldn’t have said that. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks, I guess…”

“You’re thanking _me_?” she asked, her tone edging on disbelief. “You’re the one who bailed me out of jail, paid for breakfast and…. defended my honor? For what that’s worth, I suppose.” She counted each item on her fingers and laughed a bit at the last. “I should be thanking you; I think. But, what _are_ you thanking me for, anyway?”

“For letting me crash on your little…road trip, or whatever,” he waved vaguely in the direction of the bus.

“Oh, that,” she said, smiling again. “Well, the more the merrier. Besides, it’ll be nice to not be a third wheel between Poe and Kay. So, it appears that I am once again in your debt.” The corner of his mouth twitched a bit. If you had asked Ben Solo that morning how his day would turn out, he probably wouldn’t have guess that he would be piled into a microbus with three hippies on his way to a music festival. But now it would appear that was exactly what he was about to do.

The pair walked back to the bus where Poe Dameron, the owner of the bus he’d come to learn, was finishing fueling it. Poe had slung his corduroy jacket over his shoulder as the late summer sun beat down furiously but looked up as Ben and Rey rejoined the group.

There hadn’t been much conversation while they were escaping, but now that they had a moment to breathe, he could see the shorter man sizing him up. “So…”

“So,” Ben replied.

“So, where did Rey find a bad James Dean impersonator?” Poe started, and it took Ben a moment to understand his meaning, glancing down at his leather jacket.

“Jail,” he retorted, and Poe snorted, satisfied with Ben’s response, before turning his attention to Rey.

“You really gotta stop picking up strays,” and then back to Ben after taking a drag of his cigarette, “and _you’re_ gonna wanna stow those dog tags.” Ben grasped around his neck, fingers grazing the chain that he normally forgot was there. He lifted them over his head and looked at the stamped letters with his last name, first name and middle initial, his blood type, social security and the little RA with his service number. He stuffed them into his pocket and his neck felt naked somehow.

“I don’t give a shit, mind,” Poe said, lifting the cigarette to his lips again. “But others might. So maybe don’t advertise.” Kay came back to join them then, arms laden down with snacks from inside. She was a short blonde with her hair half pulled back in a bouffant, clad in a long billowing skirt with tribal designs and an overly large long-sleeved shirt that was pushed back to her elbows. A myriad of beads hung around her neck. Poe pulled her in at the waist and she smiled as she shoved the food into his arms.

“Oh, yeah,” Poe said suddenly, voice slightly muffled by the cigarette, and reached into the back pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a few crumped bills and held them out to Rey. “Here’s the money you made yesterday. You know, before you got yourself booked.” Rey took it gratefully, counted and handed him back half of the sum.

“This was supposed to be for gas,” she said, and Poe tipped an imaginary hat in her direction. She turned to look at Ben and then thrust the remainder at him. He must have looked confused because she qualified, “For…everything. I owe you, still.” Ben looked at the few dollars in her hand and shook his head.

“Keep it, money’s not really…an issue.” He trailed off, averting his gaze. He felt someone staring at him and looked up to see Poe gazing at him with a furrowed brow. “What?”

“Don’t I…. know you from somewhere?” Poe asked, and Ben could feel something in his stomach drop. “You haven’t been out to California, have you?”

“No,” Ben said firmly, panic rising in him at the recognition he knew was going to come.

“Hmm, no, I guess not,” Poe continued, and it was as if you could see the wheels turning in his head. Another long pause. Then Ben could see it all fall into place on the man’s face, like a key sliding over the tumblers in its lock. “Hey, I know who you are now.” Ben winced. “I didn’t recognize you at first ‘cause of the” Poe made a hand motion across his own face, “But you’re that senator’s kid. I remember seeing you on TV a few years back.”

Rey looked at Ben with curiosity, “Your father is a senator?”

“Not his pop, his mom,” Poe continued, abandoning his cigarette on the ground and stamping it out. “She’s that lady senator we all liked so much. Organa, right?”

“Far out!” Kay said cheerfully, and looked reverently at Ben, then “I would have voted for her, but…California.” She did a little shrug.

“Yeah,” Poe said, staring off into the middle distance, “She’s the only politician I can stand these days.”

Rey was still catching up and then she looked at Ben, her eyes widening as the familiar name sunk in. “ _Your_ mother is _the_ Leia Organa?”

Ben ran a hand through his hair, his ears burning a bit and that urge to punch something back again. “Yeah, I guess so,” he responded noncommittally.

“Well, why didn’t you say so,” Poe beamed, before clapping him on the shoulder. He turned to the group at large. “Now let’s get this show on the fucking road, or we’re not gonna get a good spot.”

Ben was rooted to the spot, hating how everyone’s perception of him changed, for better and occasionally for worse, the moment they knew the identity of his mother. Rey took his hand, calloused from years in Vietnam, in her own and he looked up at her. There was something about her hazel eyes that disarmed him, and he let her tug him gently back into the vehicle.

Poe looked in the rearview at Ben again and it looked like he was going to give another glowing assessment of his mother, but Rey cut him off, “So, Poe, you said we weren’t going to Woodstock anymore?”

The man’s eyes lit up with the change in topic and Ben shot her a grateful look. He didn’t have much time to contemplate it before Poe spoke up again. Clearly the man liked to hear himself talk, Ben mused. “So, get this. It’s _called_ Woodstock, but it was never going to be _in_ Woodstock. Apparently, it was supposed to be some place called Wallkill. But that place shut it down, bunch of fucking fascists. So, _then_ they thought they found another place, but that was a bust too. So now we’re going to some dairy farm. Near White Lake, I think.”

“A dairy farm?” Rey questioned, “You didn’t tell me that. Where did you even hear this, Poe?”

“From Snap,” he replied matter-of-factly. “He knows a guy who knows a guy who knows the guys putting the whole thing on.”

“Snap? As in the same Snap who swears up and down, he got invited to smoke a joint with the Beatles? That Snap?” Rey asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Hey, he wasn’t _totally_ lying about that, he just…twisted the facts a bit,” Poe retorted. “And besides, we’re already here, Sunshine, so might as well check it out.”

Poe and Rey continued to bicker for some time as they approached Bethel, and Ben sat back, listening to them trade friendly insults. “You’re a very difficult man, you know that?”

“Yeah, and you’re a pain in the ass,” Poe said cheerfully. “But that’s what friends are for, ri-“ He cut himself off as the microbus started to rapidly decelerate. “Ah, hell.” Ben shifted himself in the seat to peer out the windshield.

“Jesus,” Ben said, seeing the line of cars that seemed to extend for miles into the distance. “What is all this?”

“This,” Poe said with a sigh, “is exactly what I was trying to avoid.” Ben could spot every imaginable color of vehicle if he really tried; some were the standard colors and others were spray painted like rainbows in patterns of paisley and flowers. The orange and white bus was crawling at a snail’s pace now, the next in a line of people going to the same destination. Some people had even stopped and gotten out of their cars entirely.

“I think we all better get comfortable; we might be here a while,” the man in the driver’s seat said and reached into his vest pulling out a white hand rolled cigarette that he summarily lit up and took a long drag from. The inside of the car was filled with that spicy aroma that Ben could remember from the one or two times he’d indulged while in Vietnam.

“Should you really be-“ Ben started before everyone in the car gave him a look. “Never mind.”

Poe passed the joint to Kay who puffed on it twice and passed it back to Rey. Rey sucked the smoke in to her lungs with a practiced air and then hesitantly held it out to Ben. It’s not like he’d never been high before, among other things. He’d been pumped full of speed by the army to keep him alert and at the ready on the long marches. And he’d indulged in the occasional joint while with his company, not really knowing or caring how his friends had managed to get the contraband past the CO, but that was all in Vietnam. That was a part of himself that he could reason away as a coping mechanism. But here he was supposed to be the strait-laced American soldier, helping his mother stay afloat in the political minefield that she loved. Despite his mother’s own grassroots presentation of herself, probably an effort to gain more young followers like Poe, it was still all about appearances. And he couldn’t imagine how it would look if the tabloids found him getting stoned in the back of some stranger’s bus.

So maybe that was why as everyone looked on with varying degrees of skepticism, he deliberately took the joint from Rey’s hand and inhaled deeply. The acrid smoke filled his lungs and he felt the familiar burning sensation at the back of his throat. He tried to hold the smoke in as long as possible, after all, it’s not like he didn’t go through enough regular cigarettes, but finally he felt that tickle and let the smoke flow out of his mouth again with a few coughs. The tension broke in the car as Poe let out a laugh at Ben’s coughing fit and everyone else seemed to relax as well. He was “in” so to speak. For what that was worth, he supposed.

The head buzz hit him hard and he found his normally terse mouth turning up into smiles. For a while it was like he was just another twenty-something like the hippies in the vehicle with him. He listened, not having much to say himself, as they talked about the acts that they heard were going to be at the festival. He recognized some of the bands (he hadn’t lived under a rock after all), but music hadn’t exactly been at the top of his priority list for the last three years. They finished the joint and Rey reclined in the bench seats, stretching her legs out and laying them over Ben’s lap. He looked down at those denim covered legs, impossibly tan ankles sticking out from underneath the frayed hems. Rey arched a brow at him as his hands hovered over them and she smiled when he tentatively brought a large palm down to gently, ever so gently rest on her shin.

Kay looked back at them, and there was a strange expression on her face as her gaze darted between Ben and Rey.

“What is it, Kay?” Rey asked affably, her arms behind her head. “Is my moon sign in retrograde again?”

Kay laughed, shaking her head, “It’s, _Mercury_ in retrograde, and no,” she corrected and then continued. “It’s just…you have very compatible auras.”

Ben looked at Rey, skepticism heavy on his face and an expression that read clearly as “ _Are you hearing this too?”_ Rey merely smirked at him, and replied, “Oh, really, Kay?”

“Yes,” Kay said with conviction. “Blue and yellow. They go together very well.” Ben’s brows furrowed deeper in confusion and Rey laughed a bit.

“Okay, let’s go easy on the lad, Kay,” Rey said, providing relief to this strange conversation. “He’s brand new to this.” She turned to Ben who was still frozen with a frown pulling down the corners of his mouth. “Kay reads auras. She’s quite good at it really.”

Ben himself didn’t really hold with any of the newfangled garbage that he heard spouted off by the masses of unwashed hippies, all desperate to wrap the drudgery of their lives in the comforting lie of spiritualism. But he supposed that if he was in for a penny, he was in for a pound, and he was already taking advantage of the hospitality of his new companions. No need to be rude, despite his reservations. “Ok, I’ll bite. What the fuck is an aura?” Ok, not _very_ rude.

This was perhaps the right thing to say though, as Kay’s entire face lit up at his mild interest, but also perhaps the wrong thing as he was now subjected to her entire explanation. Put simply, Kay told him, an aura was the field of energy that all living things gave off. Kay grasped his hand, yanking it forward with surprising strength. “You have a blue aura, which means that you have a very giving spirit, you’re generous and a good person to have in a crisis. People can depend on you. But you’re unsure of the future. A bit brooding, perhaps. She,” taking Rey’s hand with the same vigor, “has a bright yellow aura which means that she is a playful spirit, full of spiritual inspiration, but she fears loss.” Kay placed their hands together, as if her explanation was the most obvious thing in the world, and Ben felt that familiar electricity shoot through his veins. “Who better to complement one another than a blue and yellow?”

It didn’t _really_ make much sense to Ben, and he looked to Rey for help, but she merely smiled and shrugged before gently tugging her hand out of his. He missed it somehow. “Like I said, she’s quite good at this.” She looked away and he wished he could read minds in that moment like some character out of a comic book. She was still smiling, but somehow it didn’t reach those hazel eyes.

The moment was gone in a flash as Poe turned up the radio, a song by the Rolling Stones blaring over the speakers. Ben contented himself with looking out the window at a head of cattle grazing in a field as the scenery passed by ever so slowly around them.

Before long the four of them, all of them entirely different flavors of America’s youth, came upon the small town of White Lake. He could see parked cars lining the roads, their owners leaving them behind as they inched towards their final destination. Some cars ahead of them in the line were piled to bursting with people. The lake itself gleamed in the sunlight as they passed and crept onwards.

Maybe it was an hour, or two since the massive slowdown, but it finally looked as if traffic was abating. This seemed odd considering Poe’s predictions about their relative proximity to the festival site. It all made sense, however, when they sighted a group of people with signs blockading the road. Ben at first thought they were more hippies, but the closer they got the more apparent it was that these people were protesting something completely different. He could just make out the wording with phrases like _Stop the Hippies_ and _Local People Speak Out_. He wanted to roll his eyes.

“Ah, shit,” Poe said, a scowl on his face.

“It looks like everyone’s getting out and walking,” Kay said pointing out the window from the passenger seat. “Maybe we should just do the same. There’s no reasoning with these people.”

“Like hell,” Poe retorted.

“Poe,” Rey said warningly, “You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?”

“It would be _stupid_ to let a bunch of fucking facist assholes stop us,” the man supplied with a devilish grin before pressing on the gas. “Buckle up kids, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.” Ben pulled Rey tightly to him out of some innate reflex, and she seemed to be of the same mind as she let out a squeal. The microbus continued to accelerate, careening toward the group of people who looked completely disbelieving at the sight of a large orange and white vehicle set to plow into them. At the last second, Poe veered around them and then the bus was flying through a cornfield, bouncing violently and fishtailing as it jumped down and then back up the ditch. Poe let out a wild screech of laughter as they managed to get back onto the dirt road in a cloud of dust and rocks. Ben could hear the shouts and yells of the conservative townsfolk, as he sat askew in the backseat, heart pounding and Rey…Rey in his lap, clutching to him. He might be able to get used to that, if the fucking idiot driving them didn’t get them all killed first. Poe stuck his hand out the window and gave a bird to the would-be blockade, and was that cheering from the people who had chosen to walk around?

When they finally managed to arrive, the micro bus tromping over the soft soil of the field, Ben was…underwhelmed. Sure, there were _a lot_ of people, but there had hardly even been any fences. Or if there had been Poe had driven over top of them. It really didn’t look like much at all, despite the crowd that was trickling in. There was a sound stage fully constructed on the far end though, and Poe drove toward it, parking the bus a football field’s length away. People naturally moved for him as he honked loudly to announce his arrival. He grinned at his companions who all, even Kay, gave him dubious glances. “What?”

Rey pushed up from Ben’s lap to bring her fist down on Poe’s shoulder…hard. “Ow, fuck, Rey.”

“You better be right about this, Poe,” Rey said, “Because I swear if I used all my savings to come along on this merry goose chase and I don’t get to see Gwen Phasma…”

“It’ll be fine,” Poe said, waving off her concern, and then gestured to where more vehicles were crowding into the spaces around them. “You saw all the traffic. Look at all these fucking people. We’re definitely in the right place.”

Rey blew out a breath and Poe hopped out of the driver’s seat, the door giving a squeak behind him. The rest of the gang piled out onto the loamy soft ground. Poe came around and sized up Ben. “Hey, you want to give me a hand with this?” The shorter man gestured to the bench seat they’d just vacated, and Ben swiveled to watch him unlatch the seat from its restraints.

“Uh, sure.” Together they heaved seat from inside of the cab and with effort managed to haul it to the roof. Poe framed the sound stage with his hands, squinting a bit.

“Excellent,” he conceded. “We’ll have a great view this way.” He glanced over at the girls on the ground, and hollered out, “Good news, this spot is perfect. You girls grab the fucking tents out, because we’re not leaving this spot until they kick us out.” Ben descended the ladder, but noticed that Poe didn’t bother, merely slipping down the metal siding with flair. Rey was busying herself with an old, worn tent. One of two.

It was now that he came to it, looking around at the verdant field that he grew self-conscious. He kicked himself for not realizing until now that he wasn’t exactly prepared for a weekend in a dairy field. He didn’t have a tent or a change of clothes and nervously cleared his throat as his own impulsiveness threatened to bite him in the ass.

“I don’t…I don’t have a tent or anything,” he said dumbly, and Rey gave him a funny look. “What?”

“Well…I just assumed you’d be staying with me…in my tent,” she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Now there was doubt on her face as she continued, “You don’t…you don’t have to….if you don’t want.”

“No,” he said quickly and then amended, “Uh, I mean. Yes. I can do that. _Your_ tent. Right.”

“Right.”

Ben Solo was not exactly what one might term a Casanova. His experience with women was limited to the few school dances that he’d been forced to attend, the ones where he’d nervously tried to figure out exactly _where_ he was supposed to put his fucking hands, and a couple of kisses that were more teeth than lips. It’s not like he wasn’t interested in women _clearly…_ It’s just that there hadn’t really been a lot of time or opportunity. And now he was facing down the prospect of spending an entire weekend in a crowded tent with this woman who might possibly be the most beautifully wild creature he’d ever encountered. The thought was frankly terrifying…in the best possible way.

Rey was looking at him again as he shook himself from his contemplation of seeing more than her tanned ankles and he felt his cheeks pink, a heat rushing to color them and his ears. His hair was thankfully just long enough to cover them. He watched her fumble with the poles and heavy canvas and his mind finally catching up he stepped quickly to her side, taking some of the load from her arms before it spilled to the ground. “Let me help with this.” She nodded and smiled at him again in a way that set his pulse racing again.

The Solos weren’t exactly the camping type. Han had bought a tent a long time ago, but it had sat unopened in the rafters of the garage until the moths had eaten away at the thick canvas. And even in the military, he’d just slept in the open air instead of in a tent. Tents were dangerous out in the jungle; you might as well have a big neon sign that said “Hey Charlie, we’re over here, come murder us in our sleep”. So, to say he was struggling with the poles and the canvas and the stakes was an understatement. Rey, thankfully, seemed just as out of her element, but between the two of them they managed to take all the pieces and combine them into something that was _basically_ tent shaped…as far as Ben could tell. Poe had tossed them a bed roll and Ben spread it into the inside of the tent to finish the effect. He backed out, the soil under the tent floor soft under his hands and found Rey waiting there for him. She held her hand out to him and he took it once more, letting her delicate fingers intertwine with his for another time that day.

They both walked over to where Poe was trying to start a fire with some logs he’d found in the nearby tree line. Ben wandered over to help, the ritual of all men since the dawn of time and the very first fire it seemed. The sun was already started to sink lower into the sky, hues of bright orange and pink tinging the treeline, the day having been eaten away inexplicably by the travel and setting up of their small camp. Poe went off for a while as the new fire began to build, happily crackling away before them as it gave off puffs of white smoke and filled the air with its pleasant aroma. He came back with some sticks and a package of sausages from the cooler that he had stashed inside of his bus.

The lively atmosphere and the smell of cooking food brought over a crowd of other people who were similarly camping in the field. They brought offerings of their own food or drink with them as well and it reminded Ben a lot of his platoon, huddled around their C-rations, shooting the shit. A fifth of whiskey was making its rounds and Ben enjoyed the burn as it hit the back of his throat. The air was also heavy with the scent of marijuana to complement the campfire. He did take a few puffs of that as well, and before he knew it, he found himself in a contented state of mild impairment. Eventually, someone procured a guitar and with only a little coaxing, Rey was convinced to take it up.

“Play the Beatles!” Poe called out, and Rey shot him a look.

“Why does everyone think that just because I’m English, I must love the Beatles?” she sighed, before cheekily adding, “I mean I do love them, but not just because we all say God Save the Queen.” This led to a chorus of laughter from the slightly inebriated crowd that died down as she started to strum the instrument, making the strings buzz and hum under her touch.

“ _Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,”_ she started, and everyone stopped to pay attention to her fluttering voice as it trilled out over the sound of the fire. Ben was enraptured as he listened to the words of the song, touched with a heartbreaking sadness. She made eye contact with him as she finished by humming the ending of the soulful song and he tried to keep his mouth from falling open to betray him. When she was silent once more, the sad air about her seemed to evaporate and she handed the guitar back to its owner and gave a mock bow to the crowd around her.

The instrument then made the rounds again, as everyone seemed to find a song to play, with at least one other person who knew which chords to persuade from the strings to make the music come alive. Ben was enjoying listening to some that he knew, others that he didn’t and the camaraderie that he hadn’t known without the impending threat of gunfire. He looked around as everyone stared at him, “What?”

“We said, what’s your song, man?” a hippie from another group asked holding up the guitar and then Ben was feeling incredibly self-conscious.

“Oh, I don’t have one,” he replied, holding up his hands.

“Oh, c’mon. Everyone’s got a favorite song,” Poe said.

“I, uh, don’t.”

“There must be _something_ you know.” The group was looking expectantly at him and he cleared his throat, trying to think of something, anything. Then his mind lit onto a performance he’d seen on the Ed Sullivan Show years back, before he’d enlisted. He could remember hearing the song on the radio afterwards, played over and over.

“Ok, maybe there’s something. But…I’m not….very musical,” Ben finally conceded. He looked around, the crowd of onlookers as encouraging as he was going to get and then decided to get it over with, starting in a deep rumbling bass. “ _There is a house in New Orleans,”_ he paused, his voice cracking just a bit from nervousness and then continued. “ _They call the Rising Sun.”_ There were titters of recognition and suddenly the guitar started to strum out the chords as he continued. _“It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy.”_

_“And God I know I’m one,”_ Rey’s soprano tinkled to meet his bass and he looked at her gratefully as she joined him. He continued for a few more verses before the group took up the majority of the words for him. The song ended with him only nominally singing as the drunk and stoned group belted out the final “ _God I know I’m one.”_

“Good one, man,” Poe said at the end, and then turned to the man who had the guitar now before procuring a harmonica from an inside pocket of his canvas jacket. “Hey, you know Mr. Tambourine Man?” Getting assent, the music continued, and attention was drawn away from Ben once more. Rey stood up as a new song floated out across the group, notes disappearing above them like the wisps of smoke. She grabbed his hand again and gently tugged until he came to his feet as well.

“Care to have this dance?” she asked, and he couldn’t help the way that his mouth tugged into an involuntary smile. She pulled him out into an open space some ways from the circle, turning to the music and he obliged her in a clumsy fashion. There wasn’t a lot of natural grace to her dancing, but an enthusiasm that won out and made her movements charming as the firelight flickered and played across her pixie like features. The reedy noise of the harmonica rung out and Ben was intoxicated on her more than the whiskey and pot. Poe finished finally and the crowd moved on to yet another song, but Ben was distracted as Rey came to stop in his space. His first instinct was to back up, but she moved with him and he looked down at the pools of dark that were illuminated by the moonlight overhead. He could feel the damp heat of her breath on his face as they stared at each other for what could have been seconds or maybe minutes, until she pressed onto her toes and gently, so gently grazed her lips against the edge of his jaw. He closed his eyes at the contact and let out a sigh. Her touch was like a tidal wave, a tsunami that knocked every other thought from his mind and left him awash.

“What was that for?”

“You know what for,” she chided quietly. “I think I like you, Ben. And I think maybe you like me too. And we’ve had an interesting day. But it might not be anything more than that if you don’t kiss me already.”

“You want me to kiss you?” he asked, not hardly daring to believe it. “But you hardly know me.”

“Does that matter?” Rey asked him, brushing her fingers gently over a stray lock of hair that had fallen over his brow.

“No. But also yes,” he reasoned, still unable to take his eyes from her. He wanted to ram his fist into his mouth to stop himself from talking, but the words just started to pour out of him. “You’re married still and shouldn’t that, I don’t know, mean something?”

Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say as Rey backed away from him as if he was on fire. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ His mind was already trying to spur itself into action to find a way to remedy the situation. “I don’t understand you.”

“What?” God, he had a brain, right? He was reasonably intelligent, right? Then why the fuck was he suddenly incapable of offering more than monosyllabic responses?

“I. Don’t. Understand. You,” she repeated, and he could tell she was upset now. “This hot and cold thing. You’ve spent all day making a good show of following me about and now that we come to it, you’re suddenly worried about the sanctity of my ‘marriage’? Which,” she continued, jabbing him in the chest, “I told you very early on is already over. So, what do you want, Ben? Just tell me.”

“I-“ he started, and stopped.

“Do you want to be here with me? Then be here with me. Do you want to go our separate ways? Fine, have fun going back home. Just decide already.” She was breathing heavily now and there were flames in her eyes from more than the campfire. He was struck dumb at her vehemence but then she turned on her heel to leave and he panicked.

_Shit, fuck, shit,_ echoed in his mind and instinct took over where reason and logic were failing him. She was very nearly out of reach as he shot his hand out to grip about her arm like an iron vice. He whirled her around and pressed his lips against hers. Perhaps a tad too quickly, a touch too roughly as he felt the clink of her teeth against his own. If it hurt, she didn’t show it though. Instead she stood stunned for a moment, before moving her lips in answer. His technique wasn’t skilled by any stretch, but Rey made up for his ineptitude, taking the reins from him and guiding the kiss. She was…a very good kisser, not that he had a plethora of reference to draw from. Her hands brushed over the planes of his face and he found himself mirroring the movement. His large fingers grazed her throat, covering her jaw as her arms worked their way around his neck to draw him in closer. He felt her tongue, wet and warm against the curve of his lower lip and he darted his own out to meet it, hoping that he was doing it correctly. Whether he was right or wrong, however, he could sense his body responding with enthusiasm. His cock was making a valiant effort to escape the confines of his jeans and Rey stepped into him, letting the tent of his pants rest at the apex of her thighs as if it had always been meant to rest there.

She seemed to at least not _hate_ what he was doing as he tried to find a rhythm. He still had no idea what to do with his hands, letting them move from her face down the length of her neck, jumping a bit when he grazed the tops of her breasts. Oh god, her breasts. He hadn’t really given himself free range to think about them before this point, but now that he had….an involuntary moan slipped from his mouth into hers and he could feel her tense and shudder a bit. She was the one to break the kiss and he felt his heart hammering in his chest as he looked down at her kiss swollen lips. She bobbed her head a bit and Ben tilted his head in confusion. She did it again, now more obviously. She let out a frustrated sigh and tugged the front of his shirt before whispering in his ear. “Do you want to go back to the tent?”

“Oh.” _Oh._ “Yeah, sure.” He didn’t know when his normally deep bass had jumped an octave but here he was, making a good impression of his thirteen-year-old self. The crowd around the fire had begun to dissipate at some point and Rey’s hand drifted down to his. He gripped around it, dwarfing her palm with his own. He ducked down after her as she lifted the tent flap and crawled in where she was already waiting, sitting on her heels. He was eager to chase after her lips again and pressed another kiss to her mouth as his pants twitched in readiness. He knew, of course, the basic mechanics but beyond getting their clothing off he wasn’t exactly sure what to do next. Rey, on the other hand seemed to have a far better idea of the proceedings. She met him with a soft exhale and then her hand was running over the front of his chest, pushing him backwards until he was sitting on his ass with his legs splayed in front of him. The hand that was rubbing circles over his chest was sending shivers through him, erupting his forearms in gooseflesh.

There was an overwhelming amount of sensation and Ben was having a hard time keeping track of exactly what he was supposed to be paying the most attention to. On the one hand, he wanted to touch Rey, oh god did he want to touch her. He wasn’t sure how much he could touch so he settled for gliding his hands up and down her back, occasionally groping over the round curves of her ass in those bell bottoms. On the other hand, he was being distracted by her touching _him_. The way that she was still running her lips and her tongue over his, her hands tangling over his scalp and making a mess of his dark waves, the way she crawled directly into his lap and began to rock her hips over him. He could feel the familiar sensation that in the past he’d only been able to occasion with his hands start to build but could barely spare a thought for it.

“You’re so-“ he started, but couldn’t find the words to finish the statement. Beautiful, sexy, mesmerizing?

“Mm-ff,” she agreed into his mouth and all language was suddenly stricken from his capability once more.

They continued to kiss like that for some minutes, the air in the cramped quarters starting to boil with their mutual heat. She tugged at the hem of his shirt and he only had enough awareness to pull it over his head and fling it away from him. He couldn’t believe that he was actually here, making out with the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, about to do…Oh god. She was moving her lips from his downwards to his jawline, her teeth nipping at a sensitive spot on his neck next to his Adam’s apple and he very quickly started to come to a realization. The peak that he would generally take his time to scale was being climbed far too quickly. Far, _far_ too quickly. Like he’d been given a jetpack instead of snowshoes. He’d need to stop her, slow down, do _something._ He tried to push her away, but her hand drifted down the front of his pants and gripped him tightly through the material, stroking him with vigor, and he knew with that he’d just hit the point of no return. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect two-hundred dollars.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck FUCK_ , he screamed internally as all he could do was weather the storm. He felt his entire groin tighten; his legs next as his brain tried to protest the glorious sensation. But goddamn it! This wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured this. He furrowed his brow, a grunt of pleasure comingled in utter frustration escaping him. The aftershocks took him as she unknowingly carried him through his climax, but then he started to go slack under her and he could tell the moment that _she_ knew what had just happened, because she stilled completely under his hands.

“Did you just-“ she started and he could feel a completely different kind of heat surging to his face as shame washed over him. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. His hands drifted to his face, as if in doing so he could hide the rest of his massive form. He actually wanted to die, thought back to the jungle and wished the fucking mosquito ridden cesspool could have swallowed him whole. She was off his lap now, backing up with some confusion at the failed attempt and he did the only thing in his mind he _could_ think to do. He jolted upwards and ran. It was awkward, not made any easier by the slick mess coating the inside of his pants or the way that he had to duck and crouch just to get into the rapidly cooling night air. The rest of the group had left, and the fire was smoking in the center, having been doused at some point. He didn’t know where he was running to. It was a big fucking field, stinking slightly of cow manure, but all he knew was he had to get _away._

“Ben, wait-“ he heard as a slight hand closed on his wrist. He whirled around quickly, a reflex from too many sleepless nights in the Vietnam jungle, and found Rey holding onto his arm and panting. She had run apparently and trying to match his long strides had taken its toll. He slowed down enough for her to catch her breath, fighting the impulse to keep moving. He was humiliated. This wasn’t exactly how he thought this moment would go and he could just imagine what Rey must think. The girl in question tugged on his arm and he finally stopped, tense as she tried to speak. “Does that-“ she panted, “Does that happen often?”

It was a valid question, but he could feel the blood rushing to his face with renewed violence. He cleared his throat and looked away. “Often? Uh, no, not often.”

“So, when you’re with other girls you don’t…?”

“Other girls?” God, why was he just parroting what she was saying? Christ, where the fuck was his brain at?

It was like she could sense it. Maybe he should just get “giant virgin” tattooed on his forehead and be done with it. It’d be a fine addition to the scar the streaked over his features. “There have been…. other girls…. right?”

“Define other girls?” Oh, wow, smooth. If the Reds were taking American prisoners, he wondered where he could sign up. A labor camp in Siberia would probably be preferable to having this conversation he mused.

“So, you’ve never…in there that was...” Rey seemed to be at a loss at his confession, her hand drifting to her mouth in surprise. His embarrassment made him feel defensive. “That wasn’t your first kiss was it?”

“No,” he said with some vehemence and then softened as Rey startled at his tone. “I’ve kissed girls before, I’ve just never…”

“I thought. You were over there, and I heard, well…I’ve heard things…about what it’s like,” she replied, apparently feeling the same tide of nervous embarrassment as him at the confession. And then it was as if a realization stole over her, “So earlier, when you said it should _mean something_.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he waved, and then kicked at the ground. “You probably aren’t interested anymore, so I guess, I’ll, I don’t know find somewhere else to sleep.”

“Ben,” she breathed his name, grasping onto his hand again as he turned to leave. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. I’m just a bit…surprised.”

“Is it really so hard to believe?” he laughed derisively.

“Why? When you look like…” she gestured to his lanky form and he snorted. “I mean, anyone with eyes would…”

Now he did laugh a bit, the tension seeming to break a bit between them. He found he could look at her again without wanting to hurl himself from a tall building. “I guess,” he started slowly, “I don’t know, I was always too tall, or too skinny, too…whatever. Plus, my mom and her whole _‘image’_ ” he crooked his fingers in air quotes, “there just wasn’t ever a good time. And, I don’t know. I guess I think it _should_ mean something. Don’t you?”

She thought about this seriously for a few moments. “I suppose so, yes. The first time, maybe. Maybe all the times. I’ve never really thought about it like that.”

“Well, how do you think about it?” Ben asked, genuinely curious and hoping his question wouldn’t come across as impertinent or judgmental. He’d already come this far though, no point in being shy now.

“I suppose I’ve always thought that if it feels good what’s so wrong about it? There’s enough shite in the world without having to feel bad about something that feels right. Besides, it’s called making love for a reason, isn’t it?” She touched his arm gently and he felt the hairs on his arm prickle at the contact. He looked down at her as she held his gaze with hooded eyes. Then she smiled, sweetly and linked her arm through his. “Now, will you come back? We can try again or not. I’m patient.”

In the end he was powerless to her smile and her dimples and the little freckles that he could see reflected in the moonlight. Ben let himself be led back to the little tent where he laid back. He had to bend his knees slightly so his feet wouldn’t stick out the flap. Somehow, he didn’t think that tents were really made with people of his stature in mind. Rey didn’t notice, though, or if she did, she didn’t say anything. She merely crawled to his side and draped an arm over his torso, placing her head above where his heart was threatening to burst from his bare chest. Her hand roamed over the topography of his chest and stomach, tracing the planes of muscle, finding the constellations of freckles and moles that lay spattered on his skin and roving through the sparse hairs that crested his sternum. Ben felt his own arm wrap around her shoulders, enjoying the feel of her at his side. She fit almost perfectly into him like this, like she was made just for him.

“Ben?” she asked softly, and he hummed out his acknowledgment. “Tell me about your parents…please?”

He sucked in a breath at this, tensing slightly at the unexpected nature of her inquiry. “What do you want to know?”  
  


“I don’t know, anything, really? What was it like to grow up with them?” She asks the last question with her face buried into his chest and the words come out slightly muffled. It’s enough to make the area around his heart ache and keen for her. How did this girl, a girl he’d known for approximately twenty-four hours at this point, have this kind of effect on him?

So, he looked up at the bare canvas ceiling above them and tried to think about his parents and his childhood, tried to think about things that he’d considered better left forgotten, for her. He blew out that breath he’d been holding after a time and started, “It was a bit…lonely, I guess. My mom was always busy; my grandfather was the senator before her. When he died in office, she sort of…threw herself into it. My dad was probably lonely too, but I don’t know…he coped with it in his own way. And I just had to figure it out on my own.”

“Surely it wasn’t all bad though,” Rey asked gently, propping herself onto a forearm and tilting her head from her vantage point on his chest.

“No, probably not,” he conceded. A few years ago, he would have moaned about how unfair his life was, how awful his parents both were, but that boy had been weak and foolish. He’d left most of him behind somewhere in the Mekong Delta. The depths of the war had made him curse himself and long for his home. In his darkest hour, he’d been desperate for his mother to dispassionately tug at his long black hair and wish he’d go to the barber, or for his father to disparage him for not changing his oil in the Bonneville regularly enough.

“What’s your happiest childhood memory?” Rey prodded him, waking him from the reverie.

“Happiest?” he parroted as he tried to search his memories. “That’s a tall order.”

“Well, something happy anyway,” Rey said, and he could hear the smile in her voice as she settled into him.

“Alright,” Ben sighed, “It’s probably a bit…boring.”

“I like boring.”

“Well, every Fourth of July we’d go out to my uncle’s cabin. My mom never had to work, and she’d dress normal, like any other mom. My dad would pile us all into the car and we’d just drive. Maybe, stop for ice cream or something.” He could picture it in his mind now. “My mom always made sure to grab this ratty picnic blanket, like we were the Cleavers. And we’d just look out the window and my mom would always point out the cows or horses we saw like it was the first time she’d ever seen them. It’d annoy the hell out of my dad when he was trying to keep his eyes on the road.” Ben found himself smiling somehow at the recollection.

“That sounds wonderful,” Rey breathed as if she could see it too, and maybe she could with the way he told the story to her.

“Yeah, it was.” But that was a long time ago. Somewhere around the time he’d turned fifteen they’d stopped going to Uncle Luke’s cabin. Or at least together. He’d been surly and angry and bitter with how little time they spent together the rest of the year. And maybe he’d rolled his eyes and complained and said how stupid it was that they were dragging him away from his friends when all he wanted to do was light off a cherry bomb and see how far they could launch Roman candles.

“I never really knew my parents.” That little utterance stopped him in his tracks, and he lifted his head suddenly to look at her. Her eyes were baleful in the dark.

“Did they….die?” he asked, trailing off his sentence quietly as he uttered the words.

“I don’t know. I was found wandering around a petrol station when I was about five or six.” The response wasn’t marked with the bitterness that he might have expected if he was in the same situation. “No one came forward to claim me and I just ended up one of a thousand other children in similar situations.”

“That’s…” he didn’t quite know how to phrase it. Words didn’t really adequately describe the situation. Sad seemed like an understatement. Awful, terrible, _lonely_?

“I’m not upset about it anymore,” she continued, sensing pity from him, and he wanted to kick himself. He of all people knew exactly how little pity really did for a person. “Or at least, it doesn’t keep me up at night any longer.”

“What changed?” If she’d figured out the magic cure to those feelings of anger and bitterness towards a fucked-up childhood, he was more than happy to inquire on the subject. He’d take fucking notes if he had to.

“I met my _‘husband’,”_ she said softly with a laugh.

“What’s he like?” It was perhaps a morbid question, but now a burning curiosity overtook him. He wanted to know everything there was to know about the oddity he held in his arms.

“Finn? He’s funny, charming some might say, a bit overprotective sometimes. But more in a brotherly fashion than like you would expect from a lover,” Rey tacked on the last sentence as if to draw a stark contrast between the man Ben had seen in her photograph and his own behavior from earlier that day. “I was working in a pub, waiting tables, and he came in and I couldn’t get rid of him. He kept trying to hold my hand, if you’ll believe it.” She snorted a bit and then continued, “But somehow days turned into weeks and I found that I’d stopped waiting for my parents to come back and find me. And then he said he had to go back to America and asked if I’d come with him. So, I told him yes, and I haven’t looked back.”

“And you decided to get married?” Ben felt this question was important.

“In a manner of speaking,” Rey explained. “We’ve never made love, if that’s what you want to know.” His cheeks burned a little bit at her accurate assessment. “We just. Neither of us had anyone else. No family, no ties to anyone, so we made our own family and said damned be the consequences. I got citizenship and for a time he thought being married would help him avoid being drafted. It seemed like a perfect arrangement, until that bastard got rid of the exemption.” Rey’s voice quaked with anger and Ben tugged her closer to his chest in response. “And now I’ve never felt so alone.”

“You’re not alone.” The words came out of him without prompting, but he knew them to be true.

“Neither are you.” Rey let her hand drift over the rough skin and stubble that was growing on his cheeks. He felt her crawl upwards and then she was pressing her lips gently to his. He could smell the peaches and wildflowers again and his fingers wove through her long brown locks. This kiss was slow and soft, no expectation in the easy rhythm of their mouths. It was comfort and understanding in a way that shouldn’t be possible with someone who was by all accounts a total stranger. But maybe that’s what allowed him to be so free with his memories and his thoughts. Ben cupped Rey’s cheek, letting his fingers graze over that delicate skin.

Rey was the first to break the kiss finally, and she pulled away slowly then brought her forehead to rest on his. She propped herself up on his chest again, surveying his face in the dark and her fingers traced over the scar that marred his face. The shrapnel that had caused it had split his face to the bone and he would carry the evidence for the rest of his life.

“Why did you go?” Rey asked, and her meaning was clear as she continued to explore the planes of his face. Ben tried to think about why exactly he’d joined the army despite the distraction of soft hands playing over his forehead and cheek.

It took him a little longer than it would have normally, but he finally came around to it. His reasons seemed safe enough given what he’d already told her about his parents, so he started. “My mom probably.”

“Your mum wanted you to go Vietnam?” her tone was incredulous and as well it should be. Leia Organa was the loudest voice in Congress against the war.

“No,” Ben replied swiftly, and he could hear Rey breathe out a sigh of relief. Her idol was safe another day. “She was actually pretty pissed off, told me I was being an idiot, but that was sort of the point. She’d drag me out at all these public appearances like I was some kind of show pony. I went to college and so I got a deferment, and then she wanted me to go to law school right after and it was like I could just see my entire future being planned without me. So, the day I graduated I went to the recruiting station and enlisted. I guess it was supposed to be me saying ‘Look, I don’t have to do what you say’.”

“Do you always make decisions based on what your mother thinks?” The question was blunt, and he felt a little smaller for the asking. He barked out a self-deprecating laugh at being so succinctly called out.

“Maybe I did back then. Maybe I still do, I don’t really know anymore. It backfired on me anyway.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, she was so pissed off that she used it in her next campaign. Probably spun it like I’d been drafted or some shit. I don’t know, my dad wrote me about it. Helped her win, I think. Made her seem more human.”

“What did your father think of it all?” Rey probed further.

This was easier to answer, “My old man and her can’t agree on a goddamn thing, never have. He served in Europe back in the forties. He seemed…proud, I guess, when I showed them my enlistment papers. They got in a real pissing match over it, and then it’s like I wasn’t even there anymore.”

“And what’s it like…over there?” Now they were slipping into dangerous territory. It was ground he preferred not to tread. His waking thoughts were already mostly consumed with that fucking place and it wasn’t something he enjoyed reliving.

So, he settled for something innocuous enough. “Hot.” She snorted at this but didn’t press further. “So, what about California?”

“Also, hot,” Rey responded, and he was glad she’d taken the hint as he turned the conversation away from Vietnam. The corner of his mouth tugged up slightly at her joke. He thought she might leave it there, but as if sensing the lull in conversation she picked up and told him about her life on the other side of the country.

She was a student at Berkley. She’d never thought about university until she’d moved to the Bay area with Finn.

Finn had grown up in Oakland, his grandmother raising him after his parents had passed away. When she’d passed peacefully in her sleep, he’d been left with her house and what little that she could afford to pass along to him. After the funeral he’d changed his last name and used a bit of the money she’d left him to go to Britain. He wanted to see Penny Lane in Liverpool. He’d made it to London Airport, in the days before it’d been renamed Heathrow, and realized that he didn’t have enough money to get to Liverpool. He’d found Rey, and Ben had already heard much of the rest.

She had moved back to that house in Oakland with him in 1964 at the tender age of eighteen and he’d pushed her to go to school, to make something of herself that she wouldn’t have been able to do in London. She readily agreed and miracle of miracles was accepted. Finn had introduced her to Poe, a friend of his who also went to Berkley, albeit in one of their graduate programs. She’d met Kay and a few other friends who hadn’t come along on this trip with them, Tallie and Jessika.

It had seemed idyllic for a time and Rey had thought she’d finally found her place until Finn had been drafted. The protections they thought he’d been granted by their faked marriage were rolled back and because he wasn’t a student and didn’t have any other way to be deferred (having been denied a place in the Peace Corps) , he was faced with two choices: go to Vietnam willingly or be arrested and forced to go anyway. Rey knew the ugly reality of what it was like for Finn in Oakland, had seen it first-hand. And she’d wept when he’d gotten on a bus that sent him to some fort in the Ozarks. He’d written to her from basic training; he was one of the lucky ones and he was training to be a clerk, nothing on the front lines. But it meant four years instead of one. Trading an additional three years of his life away for the promise of a relatively safe tenure in the army.

But still…from the day that her new family was ripped away from her she’d opposed the entire war with a passion. She’d never supported it, but now…She went to protest after protest, painted signs in the dead of the night, got herself arrested on more than one occasion and did just about anything that might help make a difference. Chants of “Hell No We Won’t Go” rang out in Ben’s mind at the thought.

Ben listened to her story and they continued to talk about everything and nothing until he could barely keep his eyes open. Rey also was falling into a stupor, her words faltering and stuttering out now in her exhaustion. At some point she fell asleep there, still laying on his chest. He listened to the quiet snuffles she made until unconsciousness stole over him as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry about Ben blowing his load way too early on this one. There will be more smut coming. But intimacy is fun. 
> 
> Thanks so much for the comments on the last chapter. I love and appreciate them all.
> 
> Next chapter will be delving a bit into Ben's war experience.


	3. Run Through the Jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben wakes up to the first true day of the Woodstock Music Festival.
> 
> Between the food shortage, the gigantic influx of people and the start of an incoming storm, it's already shaping up to be a hell of a weekend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally finished editing this one and wanted to still get it out here for people, but I will be refraining from putting it on Twitter for at least the next week in respect to the current situation we're dealing with. I might have another chapter out by then as well, because I have a good chunk of Ch 4 already written.
> 
> As always, thanks to [jessavandangante](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessavandangante/works) for beta reading this. She's on [twitter](https://twitter.com/darthjessa) too.
> 
> Thank you to [ Debbie ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/generaleia/pseuds/generaleia) for the killer moodboards she's made for me. You should go commission her on [ twitter](https://twitter.com/driversputa) if you're in need.
> 
> CW for this chapter  
> \---  
> The beginning of this chapter is a flashback to Ben's time in the war. There isn't anything crazy graphic this go round, but it's hinted at and will be explored more in the next chapter.

_June 6, 1968_

_Just outside Saigon, Vietnam_

Ben sat in the barracks of Long Binh Post utterly exhausted as he lay back on the rough sheets of his bunk. His platoon had just finished a patrol and were back in Saigon for a day or two before the next set of orders got handed down to his CO. The bed felt like heaven compared to sleeping on the ground again, being covered in biting ants or eaten alive by mosquitoes. He absently scratched at a phantom bug bite as his mind blanked out. Maybe he’d take a nap, a luxury rarely afforded to him in his structured life. But they’d all been given the rest of the day to spend how they pleased, and Ben was loathe to waste it sleeping. So, he willed his eyes to stay open, contemplating the patterns making up the rivulets of the tin roof.

His musings were interrupted by the sound of running and scuffling boots. Several soldiers were rushing past him and he quirked an eyebrow until one of them shouted at him, “C’mon, there’s been someone shot back home. Some senator from New York.”

He’d never shot so quickly off the bed as he did then, his heart thundering in his chest and ice in his veins. It couldn’t be, could it? He pounded after the others who were finding the nearest radio and tuning in to an announcement that was being broadcast all the way from home.

A crackling voice came out over the radio, “ _Senator Robert Francis Kennedy died at 1:44 am….”_

Ben was ashamed to admit a bone crushing relief at not hearing his mother’s name, but then his heart dropped again almost as quickly. He’d known the other Senator. Not intimately, but his mother had worked with him. Ben remembered in passing that he’d been a friendly enough man and as the announcement finished, he wanted to vomit, whether from relief or grief he wasn’t entirely sure. He slipped out of the crowd, largely unnoticed despite his height and found the door outside. He gulped in the humid air and tried to get his breathing under control but ended up retching into a nearby bush anyway. The rain that was gently falling overhead would wash it away in an hour.

If he was completely honest, he was still reeling from the short-lived terror that he’d felt for his mother. She was loud and unrepentant about it. She’d made no small list of enemies during her tenure as a politician, and she could so easily have been targeted just like the handsome young senator she worked with. It seemed like these killings were happening more and more often back home and he felt a bit powerless here nearly nine thousand miles away. His fingers trembled as he fumbled at the pocket of his dirty fatigues, pulling out a folded-up piece of stationery. Ben unfurled it and looked at his mother’s elegant flowing script on her official letterhead. He hadn’t written her back. He was sporadic at best but now he clutched the letter tightly and felt sick again.

“Hey, buddy, you doing alright?”

Ben whirled around to see a fellow soldier, perhaps a little older than him hovering in the doorway. His sandy hair was cropped short to his head in stark contrast to Ben’s own dark hair which had finally reached pre enlistment length once more. It was a little past regulation, but if his CO was anything like him after a long five-day march along muddy tracks then he was too exhausted to reprimand Ben for it.

Ben cleared his throat and wiped his mouth, “Uh, yeah, I’m fine. Just…”

“Yeah,” the other solider seemed to understand and jabbed a thumb in the direction of the throng, “Crazy shit back there, eh?”

“Yeah, crazy shit.”

“Hell, we’re fighting a war here but seems like shit’s going to hell back _there_.” It was a joke and it did make Ben laugh a bit, easing the tension that gripped him. This pleased the other man who held out a hand to Ben. “Name’s Tai, how ‘bout yourself?”

“Ben, I’m Ben.”

* * *

_September 1968_

Ben had always resisted making friends since he’d gotten to Vietnam some two years prior. He’d come in as a replacement for other soldiers who the people in his company hadn’t wanted to talk about. So, he’d struggled to fit in, just as he’d struggled to fit in back home. His natural inclination to shyness combined with his formidable physical presence didn’t help things either. He’d built muscle during basic training and that meant that REMF’s usually kept their distance, and most combat infantrymen didn’t get attached as a matter of principle.

But Tai was different. Being friends with him was easy somehow, and Ben relaxed those guards around himself. Tai had introduced Ben to Hennix Quarren, from his platoon, and the three made easy company together. It was refreshing given the lack of real human connection he’d been suffering under. Hennix, or Hen as he occasionally liked to be called, was a burly man from some no name town in Missouri. But despite his physical appearance, he was tended more toward the intellectual and Ben rarely found him without his nose buried in some book or other. Tai in contrast was lively and lived to lighten the mood. It helped ease the transition between duty and the short snatches of time that Ben found himself back on base.

Eventually the company they were all a part of folded some platoons together in an effort to “centralize” and Ben, Tai and Hennix all ended up assigned together. It seemed like a clever stroke of luck, really. Ben learned to trust his new friends in the way only those going through the same hardship truly can. He found that they were all nigh inseparable. If they were on base, they were constantly in each other’s company, and if they were in the field, they had one another’s backs. Ben would go as far as to call them his brothers despite having only known them a few months.

One night while they were in the rec, Ben first observed, and Tai vocalized not long after an air of distraction about Hennix. The broad man set his copy of “On the Road” down at his friends’ teasing, fixing them both with a glare. Kerouac notwithstanding, Hennix had been staring at the same page for the last twenty minutes, and it had escaped no one’s notice.

“So, what’s got you so out of it?” Tai asked, his New England accent only broadening as he smiled.

“I think I can take a guess,” Ben smirked, noticing the group of army nurses that were assembled on the female side of the facility.

“Oh, Hennix, you sly dog,” Tai laughed, his mind already jumping to the only logical conclusion. “So, have you spoken to her yet?”

Hen let out a grunt and picked up his book with indignation, cheeks flaming, clearly not in the mood for teasing. “Fuck you guys. I’m going to bed.” They hollered after Hennix as he stormed out of the room, only adding fuel to the fire, but Ben knew that by morning he’d cool down. When he and Tai had recovered from their mirth at their friend’s expense, the shorter man was rocking up from chair and moving in the direction of the girls.

“Tai, what are you doing?” Ben asked, “I thought we were just screwing with him.”

“Just, trust me,” Tai replied, blue eyes twinkling and before Ben could stop him, he’d gone over to the group of girls at large. They all seemed to turn like a flock of starlings at his approach, and it wasn’t at first apparent whether they wanted to scatter or rebuff him. Ben couldn’t hear what he was saying, so he had to draw conclusions from Tai’s wildly gesticulating arms as he talked with one of the nurses, skin the color of coffee. He came back over, and Ben raised a brow, unamused. Tai looked at him mock affronted, “What?”

“Do I want to know?”

“I was just giving our mutual friend a little…help.”

“Help?” Ben asked, unconvinced. “Just make sure your _help_ doesn’t make him pound you, because I won’t try to stop him.” Tai laughed, punching Ben lightly on the shoulder before the latter also got up to find sleep.

The next day though, Ben was pleasantly surprised to see the same nurse from the previous night come over to join the three of them at mess. It wasn’t necessarily unheard of for the women of the Army Nurse corps to fraternize with the soldiers, but to see her standing there hovering was still drawing attention, and maybe a few whistles, from the surrounding men. Hennix looked up from his bowl of overcooked oatmeal and his jaw dropped a little bit. Ben thought perhaps his friend might look less surprised if the VC dropped in right then and there and started to tap dance.

“Hi, I’m Voe,” the girl said to Hen. Her eyes shifted from him to Tai and back again. “Can we talk?”

Hen glowered at Tai who was taking particular care to train his gaze anywhere but him. Hennix turned back to the girl and muttered, “Uh, yeah, sure.”

When the pair departed, Ben looked at Tai knowingly. “So, how’d you know it would work?”

Tai merely shrugged and grinned at him. “Look hard enough and you see these things.”

* * *

_Late December 1968_

_New Year’s Eve_

“Oh, c’mon, you gotta give us more than that,” Tai chided, and Ben merely smiled at his friends’ happy argument. They were all smoking shitty cigarettes they’d bought in the commissary, holed up around Ben’s bunk while they waited for midnight. The good brands were always in short supply, so they were stuck splitting a pack of Pall Malls on the last night of 1968. The rest of the box was currently rolled into Ben’s black t-shirt sleeve.

Ben laid more pocket change into the pool in the center, took a drag on his cigarette, and eyed his hand of poker as he listened to Hennix retort, “I don’t like to make a lot of plans, and neither does she. We don’t know where we’ll be in a few months, let alone a year. It’s irresponsible to promise things we might not be able to deliver.”

“Do you hear this shit?” Tai asked, Pall Mall bobbing in his mouth as he nudged Ben. “Goddamned liar. Everyone makes plans, it’s the only thing we’ve got in this fucking place. Fuck being responsible. Ten bucks says they tie the knot before 1970.”

“You’d have to have ten bucks in the first place,” Ben pointed out with a smirk, tapping his ashes. Hennix looked at Ben gratefully.

“Ah, you both are full of shit,” Tai chortled, unperturbed. “And besides, Solo, you never told us what _you_ plan to do when you get back home.” Ben cleared his throat, deliberately choosing that time to take another drag.

Ben had thought about what it would be like to leave Vietnam in passing, but _plans_? Well, he hadn’t really gotten that far. “I dunno,” he started, scratching his head and then running a hand through his dark hair. “I guess I’ll probably go into the family business. I’ll have to, I think.”

“Hey, listen,” Tai retorted, “You don’t have to do jack shit you don’t want to, you hear me?” He pointed at Ben with the burnt down to the filter pinched in-between his index and middle fingers. “Just be who you are; the rest will follow.”

“Sage advice,” Hennix said drily. “Now can we get back to this game or what?”

“Yeah, I’m full of that if you hadn’t noticed,” Tai shot out, his eyes cheeky. “Now, I’ve noticed no one has asked _me_ what I plan to do when we get out of here.”

“That’s just ‘cause everyone knows you’re going to tell us anyway,” Ben said and it earned him a loud guffaw from Hennix.

“God, it’s like neither of you even know how to play this game,” Tai said, with exasperation, no longer referring to the hand of poker before them. “Now, since you didn’t ask; when _I_ get out of here, I’m going to go to one of those big parties they have in Times Square, I’m gonna make a million bucks, and I’m gonna find the most beautiful girl in town and get her to marry me.”  
  


“That’s a tall order, hoss,” Hennix said before laying his hand out. “Three Crowns, gentlemen.”

“Ah, shit,” Ben replied laying down his pair of Aces.

Tai looked like he could barely contain himself as he laid down a full house. “And that’s how you win, boys.”

“How the fuck does he keep doing that?” Ben asked, flummoxed, and Hennix rolled his eyes.

“He probably distracted us with his bullshit again. It’s the only way he knows how to bluff.”

“Hey, it’s not bullshit,” Tai bit out after he’d swept up his winnings. “I’m serious. This place,” he gestured around to the barracks, “isn’t where we’re all going to end up. I guarantee you we’re gonna get the fuck out of this shithole jungle and we’re all gonna get old and fat and play golf together. But before that happens, I’m gonna fucking live. I suggest you boys do the same. We gotta have something to talk about when we’re all a bunch of codgers. _Now_ , I think I have ten dollars on that bet, Solo.”

* * *

_Early June 1969_

The rain was beating down on their backs as they trudged through the mud. They were supposed to be going to clear out a local village. The higher ups, his CO had told the company, wanted the village secured by nightfall. It was an easy thing; a routine thing. Or it would be easy if Ben’s socks weren’t sopping wet from the constant downpour. The rain was coming down and soaking his hands, leaving them numb, and the drops were slipping off the front of his standard issue poncho right into his boots. He could feel the mud squelch between his toes, and it was a slog just to move one foot in front of the other.

The rain and muck didn’t seem to dampen Tai’s spirits though. He was cracking jokes about how they wouldn’t have to use any of their drinking water on their LRP’s since they’d already be completely soaked until the Lieutenant leading them had to tell him to “shut his hole or he’d be on fatigue duty when they got back to base.” Tai had complied, but he was still smirking to himself. Ben rolled his eyes good naturedly. Tai made the day go by quicker even if Ben and Hennix got reprimanded a little more because of his antics.

It had been a three-day march so far, and not all of it had been through high ground mud like this, so Ben guessed at least that had to count for something. He’d had to wade through chest deep water yesterday and repressed a shudder at the memory of the giant snake they’d seen swim past their formation. He was almost certain it had been venomous. Most things in this fucking place were designed to kill you.

The rain slowly started to die off, leaving the air muggy and practically suffocating because of the humidity. Ben didn’t have time however to thank the heavens for stopping the torrential downpour. The mud they walked through seemed to erupt as if a hive of angry hornets had come alive under their feet. He knew what it meant and watched as the rest of his platoon caught up to speed and dove into the greenery surrounding them.

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath as he hurled headlong into the tree cover off the road. He gripped his gun tightly, his knuckles turning white, and tried to sight where the hail of bullets were originating from. He popped up just enough to be able to shoot several rounds off in that direction, just like his platoon mates in the nearby brush. His heart was hammering, his mind was racing, and he whipped his head around to look for Tai or Hennix.

He looked at Hennix who had been closest to him and breathed a sigh of relief at finding him some ten yards away. Mist from the recent precipitation clung heavily to the air, obscuring his vision slightly, but he could tell that Hennix was edging closer to his position. Ben tried to take deep breaths. He’d been in firefights before. This wasn’t his first time facing off against members of the VC, but every time it felt like he was playing a game of Russian roulette. Would he be lucky again today? Or would this be the time that his parents would get a telegraph from a government messenger telling them that he’d been killed or worse that they didn’t know what had happened to him, there wasn’t enough of him _left_ to identify. Fuck, that line of thought wasn’t going to get him anywhere and it certainly wasn’t going to help him stay alive. He pounded his chest furiously, the dull pain bringing him back to the scene at hand.

He lifted his head again and a few more rounds came his way before he quickly dodged back behind the tree. He’d seen just enough to find one of the shooters and then turned and unloaded his gun. The roar of machine gun fire filled his ears and turning his head, he only just heard Hen scream his name.

* * *

_Friday_

_August 15, 1969_

Ben shot up with a shudder and a gasp, his heartbeat thundering. He was sweating like a hog despite the relative chill of the morning. Was it morning? Time had lost meaning in the filtered light streaming through the tent. He was in a tent. Where was he again? His thoughts raced as he tried to will his memories back into place.

“Hey,” a sleepy feminine voice asked, as a slender arm wrapped around his torso. “What’s wrong?” He was caught off guard for a moment and whipped to find…Rey. Right. Rey. He was on some fucking dairy farm in Bethel. For….a music festival. The thoughts clicked into place one by one and he focused on his breathing. Christ.

He was used to the nightmares insomuch as anyone can be, but fuck that had been vivid. He’d been in the jungle the day that Hen…fuck. Enough. He let his head fall into his hands, hiding his features from Rey and trying to think of anything else.

Rey sat up now, nuzzling into his shoulder and he peeked out with wild eyes from the place behind his hands to look at her. “Are you okay?”

He cleared his throat and tried to compose himself. “Y-yeah. Fine. Just a dream. It’s nothing.” He met her hazel gaze and her brows knitted down. She didn’t believe him. Ben had never been a particularly good liar; his emotions always lay right at the surface of his features.

Rey brought a hand to rest on his cheek, thumb cresting over his cheek bone. It was odd how comforting it felt. “Hey, you’re here with me. You’re safe. Everything is okay now.” It didn’t solve all of his problems, but the words felt nice as they washed over him, and he wondered how she knew exactly what to say. His chest eventually stopped heaving and he closed his eyes to rest his forehead against hers. Now that he was coming back to himself, he remembered something else as well. He blinked his eyes open and looked at her rosy lips in the light of day and on impulse came forward to kiss her. He did it a little bit quickly and their noses collided with mutual grunts of pain, but Rey seemed to understand his intent. After resetting themselves, she got close to him (more slowly) and gently brushed a kiss over his lips.

She tentatively probed at the seam of his mouth and on instinct he flicked out his tongue to meet hers. She tasted a bit like sleep but still mostly like her and he felt himself heat up when she let out a sigh into his mouth. He could feel his morning erection begin to perk up just from kissing her, and he’d be more than happy to do something about it if he didn’t currently have to take a piss. Fuck his traitorous bladder.

“Just….hold that thought,” Ben said breathlessly as he broke the embrace. The corners of her mouth turned up in something that was half smirk half smile as he crawled on his hands and knees to the tent entrance. He would just make this quick and hop back in the tent and….

“Holy shit.” Ben’s eyes widened at the sight that awaited him outside of the tent. To be sure, now that he was back in control of his faculties, he remembered that there _were_ a lot of people here yesterday. But now… Fuck. It was an absolute swarm. There were people as far as he could see, stretching to the furthest trees in the large field. The sounds of thousands and thousands and thousands of individual voices talking buzzed through the air. He didn’t think he’d ever seen so many bodies in one collected place. Not at his college graduation, not at his mother’s political rallies, not even in Vietnam.

“Ben, are you alright?” Rey’s soprano fluttered from the tent as he stood dumbfounded, and she scrambled out as well. Her reaction was similar to his own at taking in the mass, before she said a bit anxiously, “We should find Poe.”

Ben nodded meekly, still taken aback by the scene around him as Rey rootled about what had once been their campsite, but now was already filling up with the throng. She banged on the door of the bus, “Poe! Poe, wake up!”

“Woah, babe, no need to yell,” Poe yawned as he emerged from the inside. “Some of us were still trying to catch a few winks.”

Kay lifted herself up from the floor behind him, a sheet draped over her form. “Why the freak out?”

“Just-just look,” Rey said, gesturing around them and Poe finally focused his eyes on the same sight as she and Ben.

“Righteous,” was his one word reply as his mouth tilted into a grin. He pulled his slightly squashed box of cigarettes from his back pocket and lit one up. “It’s a festival, Rey. What did you expect? Just…I don’t know, go enjoy yourself.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Rey asked, still slightly agape. “It’s crazy out here.”

Poe shrugged and then blew a cloud of smoke out, “If you want someone to tell you what to do then here’s a plan. You and lover boy go find us some chow. My guess is, it’s gonna be a long fucking weekend. Music isn’t supposed to start until tonight anyway.”

Rey gave a little huff but nodded. She sunk her hand into Ben’s, and he was more than happy to allow it. The crowd around him was making him feel a bit smothered but he didn’t want to chance losing sight of her. He’d never find her again amongst the multitude. Something military niggled at the back of his mind and he tried to take a mental snapshot of their campsite before they made the trek to wherever they could find food.

The sun was beating down hot on Ben’s exposed shoulders; he still hadn’t put his shirt back on. It didn’t seem to matter because with his two-day old stubble and his denim jeans he seemed to fit right in with the crowd. It was a real pain in the ass to try to shove through the crowd, but luckily some combination of his imposing form, the intimidating scar on his face and his overall displeasure with the amount of people surrounding him lent them an advantage. People at least didn’t stand in their way for very long. That was until they saw the line that was already forming at the food stand. Christ, Ben thought to himself, he’d seen better constructed buildings thrown up in Vietnam under threat of gunfire. The damn shack looked like it was going to topple over at any moment. They gazed down the length of the line, stretching on and only getting longer, at the amount of food stockpiled in the tiny little hut, and Ben said the most obvious thing to anyone paying half-attention. “There’s no way they’re going to have enough for everyone.”

Rey seemed to agree with him, her spark of optimism dimming slightly. “Okay, what do we do then?”

Ben let out a sigh, running his hand through his sleep mussed hair as he racked his brain. “We find a store, I guess. Hope they aren’t cleared out. We still have those snacks from yesterday, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rey said, the panic leaving her as Ben began to talk through the options.

“Good, let’s make sure to ration those.”

“If Poe didn’t already go to town while we were gone,” Rey snorted. “That’s probably why he sent us on this merry hunt, the bastard.”

Ben laughed at this, but continued, “Next, we’ll need water. It’s hot out and looks like it’s gonna stay that way. The last thing we need is heat stroke.”

“Kay was right,” Rey smiled, and he tilted his head a bit in confusion. “You’re very good to have…in a crisis.”

His mouth pulled up in that charming smile he’d inherited from his father, but he’d had little occasion to utilize. “I guess. This isn’t exactly what I’d call a crisis though. A bit of a pain in the ass, but…there are worse things.”

“Oh.” Rey’s expression fell a bit, a hardness in her eyes, and he felt a bit self-conscious at his verbal slip. He didn’t think she was judging him anymore — not after last night at least — but he could still tell that no amount of talk was going to suddenly give her warm and fuzzies about Vietnam.

He averted his gaze trying to turn the conversation back to the situation at hand. “So, store. I think we can probably walk from here. We’re not that far from town. You guys wouldn’t have anything to carry shit with, would you?”

“Erm, I have a backpack,” Rey volunteered, giving over to Ben’s newfound authority. He reflected that he almost sounded a bit like his mother and practically snorted at the idea.

“Good, anything else?”

“I think Poe might have a bag; Kay has a purse.”

“That’ll have to do,” Ben replied, trying to think strategically now as he laid out his plan.

* * *

An hour later they’d turned out the contents of Rey’s backpack, Poe’s satchel and Kay’s purse. Ben had gone a little pink in the ears at the sight of Rey’s underwear as it was laid out in a neat pile with her spare clothing. Rey had noticed his awkwardness, he knew she had, but she’d been polite enough to not say anything at least, merely exchanging a knowing smile and a wink. Ben redonned his white t-shirt, and turned away to roll up the sleeves, if for no other reason than to avoid making eye contact with Rey until his face was no longer the color of a tomato.

With that done, he dove his hands into the melted ice of Poe’s cooler and slurped the water. It was going to be a bit of a hike to White Lake from the festival site, and he was already sweating profusely from the rising August heat. Rey watched and mimicked him, surrendering to his knowledge in a way that pleased him far more than it probably should.

Ben tied the straps of Poe’s satchel to Rey’s back. It was light now, sure, but when they were laden down with supplies, he didn’t want it to cause her shoulders to ache any more than necessary. Lingering on this train of thought, he eyed her shoes with trepidation; she wore strappy sandals with a wedged heel that gave her some height but surely wouldn’t be comfortable on a trek such as this.

“Are you sure you want to wear those?” he asked, and she waved a hand dismissively.

“It’ll be fine. You said it’s not that far anyway.” He shrugged, accepting her word. What the hell did he know about women’s fashion anyway?

Poe and Kay agreed to man the food line and get what could be had for their group while Rey and Ben investigated town. With any luck they’d be able to scrounge enough supplies between the two strategies to last them until they left Sunday. Poe’s prediction that they wouldn’t be leaving that spot appeared to be dead on, what with people teeming around them in every direction, even though it was no longer in the way he’d meant.

Then they were off. The walk to the store felt easy, Ben’s legs were stretching again in ways that felt routine. It had been a long couple of months and marching down this dirt track somehow felt right. He wondered not for the first time how he was going to adapt back to civilian life when his every thought for the last damn near three years had been consumed by schedules, orders and routines. Yes Sir, no Sir, how high do you want me to jump _Sir_? The freedom of choice back on American soil was overwhelming.

Rey was cheerful enough in her own way, but he could tell that long walks weren’t exactly her specialty. Still, they made good time on what Ben thought was about three miles. He kept losing track of the internal count of his steps as he watched Rey, so he couldn’t truly be sure. He caught himself staring and sharply looked forward at the road. They seemed to be the only two walking _away_ from the massive festival. Swarms of people passed by them, hoards hung out the windows of cars that were moving, if it was at all possible, even slower than the day before. The gridlock was intense, and Ben grimaced at how that might bode for their chances of finding additional food. Maybe it was the previous day’s protests, the dirt roads, or the way that if you blinked you’d miss the little town, but something told him White Lake, New York hadn’t been prepared for the sudden influx of young people.

When they arrived in the small town, the truth was probably worse than he’d anticipated. Several stores, despite the nosy eyes that peered from windows, had turned their signs resolutely to ‘C _losed’._ Apparently, the locals were none too pleased at the mass congregation of hippies, but he wasn’t that surprised. He himself had been full of similar, but muted prejudice before finding himself saddled with Rey and her friends. 

After a little more milling about the main drag, he finally saw something that gave him a little bit of relief. Another line, thankfully at least a bit shorter than the one at the concert site, led to a general store with large lettering on the front. “Vassmer’s” he read the red swirled characters.

“Oh, thank Christ,” he breathed, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, and Rey seemed to agree with his sentiments. The line was buzzing with hippies in every manner of dress. As they approached, he saw a beleaguered man usher in a few people at a time before holding his hand out to slow the line once more. Ben walked with Rey to the tail end of the line, some hundred yards down the cracked sidewalk and mentally prepared himself for the wait.

“So, what’s your favorite color?” she asked, breaking the silence as they moved, and there was something altogether familiar about her enthusiasm.

“Hmm,” he stroked his chin in thought, not seeing any reason to not play along. It might actually help the time pass. “Blue, I think. What’s yours?”

“Green most days,” Rey replied cheerfully. “London was a bit…grey. Sometimes yellow, depending on if sunflowers are in bloom. Maybe orange if the sunset is just right.”

“Isn’t the point of a favorite to just pick one?” Ben asked, not unkindly though. He was enjoying her vivacious energy just as much as he had enjoyed watching her walk just ahead of him in those bell bottoms that hugged her hips in just the right way.

“Why should it? Why when there are so many colors to pick from?” Ben didn’t quite know how to respond. The logical part of his brain said, _Because you must. Because how can anyone say they have a favorite if they don’t narrow it down?_ But the other part found comfort in her simple explanation and questioning. He allowed a quiet smile to hold itself on his lips.

Rey took this as encouragement and continued to pepper him with trivial questions. What was his favorite ice cream flavor? What was the strangest thing he’d ever eaten? What was his favorite movie he’d seen? It didn’t take much of this distraction to allow them to finally approach the head of the line. They were admitted in a with a group of probably twenty other hippies and they split up to cover more ground, each with a basket in hand. It didn’t take long to ascertain that the store was dangerously low on supplies. Ben did what he could though, grabbing things that wouldn’t need to be kept cool and several bottles of Evian. When he met back up with Rey, he saw that her basket was full to bursting with candy and soda. He snorted a bit as he gazed at the stark contrast between his findings, sensible and practical things like crackers and tinned meat, and hers which looked like a small child had run amok in the confection aisle.

“You know, you’ll get dehydrated faster if you load up on all of that sugar,” he said mildly, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement.

“Oh really?” she challenged, pulling the handles of the basket to her chest in response.

“Yeah, trust me. Maybe you should cool it a bit on the sweets,” Ben replied, and he moved toward her to try and replace some of the junk back onto the shelves.

She squealed a bit as she danced out of his way and he made another purposeful grab as she practically sang out, “What if that’s all a lie they told you because the army is run by sad angry people who just wanted you to be unhappy?”

“Yeah and what if it’s not and you pass out from heat stroke?” he growled playfully, coming in for another grab as they danced about the aisle. He managed to catch her finally, caging her between his arms as she backed into a row of shelves. He felt like his skin was on fire as everything around them seemed to blur, his gaze trained only on her like a fox sighting a hare. She looked up at him with equal intensity and he felt himself leaning in to close the distance, drawn to her. His eyes were fluttering shut and he really couldn’t be bothered to give a damn who was watching them when he felt a shift beneath him and…. Rey had skittered right under his arms, taking advantage of his distraction. She laughed, the sound tinkling like a bell and he felt his mouth tug up. “You little cheat.”

She stuck out her tongue at him and then pranced away, calling back, “So, say you’re right—”

“I am right,” he pressed.

“Well, just say you are,” she continued as if not hearing him. “What’s the point of going through life if you’re not going to have a bit of fun and make some mistakes while you’re at it?”

“Like I said, _not_ passing out comes to mind,” he chided.

“Well if I do pass out, you’ll be there to catch me,” she said, and she sounded so certain that it made his chest tighten a bit and his mouth go a bit dry. “So, the way I see it I win twice.”

He felt himself color at this and looked away, “Just…just _try_ to drink some water, okay?”

“Okay,” she said sweetly, and she was much closer now, smiling that broad toothy grin as she dumped her intended purchases into his basket and turned to go up to the register. It lit a flame in his bloodstream. This girl was going to kill him. Of that he was certain. They made their purchases, Rey digging in her pockets to come up with the wad of bills she’d earned from busking along with a handful of loose coins and Ben fronted the rest, pulling a ten-dollar bill from his wallet.

The worn looking cashier returned Rey’s friendly open grin, and whispered conspiratorially, “You know, I think it’s really great what you kids are all doing out there. If I was a bit younger, I might join you. I think the rest of the town are all nuts.” Ben realized then that the older woman must think _he_ was a hippie too, what with his unshaven face and his hair that had grown just a bit longer than regulation in an army hospital. He opened his mouth to contradict her but thought better of it.

Soon enough they were ushered out the back, much needed supplies tucked neatly into two paper bags. Ben gently turned Rey around to undo the satchel on her back after taking off the pack on his own back and between the two of them they loaded up their goods. Rey was insistent on making sure that their loads were equally distributed, despite Ben’s protests.

“I can carry my own weight,” she said stubbornly. A noise of frustration rose in the back of his throat considering that he’d spent the last three years marching through god knows what with fifty or sixty pounds of gear on nearly every day. A fire was in her eyes as she deliberately grabbed several water bottles and packed them into the bottom of her bag.

“It’s going to get heavy, just so you know,” Ben said, his tone reproving. An abstract thought told him he sounded a bit like his mother. “You should just let me carry the heavy shit.”

“Why? Because I’m a girl?” she asked, her voice sharp.

“No, maybe, I don’t fucking know. Just let me carry it for fuck’s sake,” he was getting irritated rather quickly and it was like arguing with a brick wall.

“I said, I’ll be fine,” Rey retorted, snatching the satchel off the ground and defiantly setting it on her back. Ben’s temper was roiling under the surface.

“Fine, whatever. Do what the fuck you want; let’s just go.” The walk back seemed to be going well at first, or as well as it could be since both he and Rey were now plunged into a stony silence. The sun was shining down with gusto now and Ben yearned for the good thick sun cream that the army provided all their soldiers in little tins. He could already feel the prickle on the back of his neck that meant a sunburn was not long to follow. Tai and Hennix had always laughed at how easily he burnt. _You’re the only one who’s going home without a tan_ …He shook his head a little at the thought and turned his attention back to the rhythm of his feet.

As he’d predicted Rey started to tire after about a half mile, slowing down progressively until she was standing still. Ben stopped himself as well and looked over as she winced and adjusted the pack on her back. When Rey noticed his attention, she waved at him as if to dismiss him and he let his head fall back in exasperation.

They started back up again but had to stop after a hundred feet because she kept hissing under her breath. He glanced at her and watched her gingerly walking in those fucking shoes he’d _known_ weren’t made for this kind of walking. She caught him looking and resolutely closed her mouth, but he could still see the grimace on her face.

They continued this pattern of start and stop for another five minutes, and finally it was too much for Ben. “Oh, for fucks sake,” he exclaimed, rounding on her.

“Is this the part where you tell me, _I told you so_?” she asked as she braced her hands on her hips. Her feet were flaming red around the straps of her sandals and Ben knew that no matter how they got back she was going to blister.

“Will you just let me take some of that back, please?” he was frustrated and desperate as he tried to reach for the bag on her back. She swiveled away from him, hissing in pain as her sandals scraped against her heels.

“No,” she said defiantly. “I can do it.”

She was being absolutely impossible. He looked down at her and set his jaw furiously before planting his arm near her hip and slinging her bodily over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Hey! Let me down!” she cried out, kicking and flailing about madly. “Unhand me you…you…barbarian!”

“You brought this on yourself,” he said smugly, grunting a bit with the effort of restraining her. Then he felt something sharp in his side and practically dropped her to the ground. “OW! You fucking bit me.”

She scrabbled away from him with a smirk before crossing her arms. “I _said_ to put me down.”

He ran his hand over his face in exasperation. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“Tell me something I don’t know, soldier boy.”

“Okay, well, since you refuse to let me help you, how exactly do _you_ propose we get back?” he stared her down, locking his eyes on her hazel gaze. She looked unrepentant but he could see beneath the tough façade and she softened a bit as the reality of their situation sunk in.

The anger released from him then, like someone had pulled a valve on a boiler. He took her hand in his with a sigh, an idea forming, “Come on, you just gotta…put one foot in front of the other. If you won’t let me carry you, then there’s only one way we’re getting back and that’s on your own two feet. So…come on”

“Easy for you to say,” she said witheringly. “You’re used to this.”

“I wasn’t always,” he scoffed. He started to march in place and Rey quirked an eyebrow skeptically. “Just…just do it, okay?”

She snorted, but still copied him, nonetheless. “Left, come on, left, right, left.”

They started walking again, but Rey stopped once more her face contorting in pain as the straps of her shoes rubbed even more aggressively on the forming blisters.

“You just have to distract yourself, and we’ll be there in no time,” he replied.

“It’s no use,” a tone of surrender in her voice that brought him back in time.

He let himself think back to the long marches and what had pulled _him_ through some of his darker moments. Times when he’d almost let himself submit to the heat and the deep ache in his bones. He knew in that moment what he needed to do, the last-ditch effort that his mind proffered up to him. His cheeks preemptively colored though, and he thought to himself, _This one’s for you Tai._ “Alright, I’ve got an idea that I think’ll help.”

Rey looked up at him from under her dark lashes and he cleared his throat, turning his gaze skyward as he started to march in place again. Fuck, he was really going to do this. It better work. He opened his mouth and belted out slightly off-key, “ _Well shake it up baby now.”_ Whatever Rey had expected, it certainly wasn’t this. She let a laugh escape her mouth before he fixed her with a biting stare. “Now, me making an ass of myself only works if you play along.”

She stifled her giggles before nodding, her eyes alight with mirth, and all recollection of their previous argument gone. “Okay, okay.”

She joined his footfalls as he continued, “ _Twist and shout.”_

_“Come on, come on, come on baby now,”_ they called out in unison, Rey now getting in the spirit. It didn’t take long before she was all smiles again, her aching feet forgotten as they tramped down the road. They were in the flow of things now and when they finished, in Ben’s mind, a truly abhorrent cover of the Beatles’ song, Rey was already ready with another.

“Okay, okay,” she said, “Tell me you’ve heard this one. _Imagine me and you, I do.”_ It sounded familiar, but music was a carefully controlled commodity in Vietnam. The higher ups didn’t want any of the men getting “ideas” from the music coming out of the west. Regardless, he marched along as Rey sang, and a few of the people joined in recognizing her tune as she sang loudly and pointedly to Ben “ _I can’t see me loving nobody but you, for all my life.”_ He looked away as some began to stare, and she burst out laughing at his reaction causing a vivid blush to creep over his face. With her sufficiently distracted they actually made good time back to their makeshift campsite, however, so at least they had that going for them.

If it was possible, there were even _more_ people than when they’d left. Rey kicked off her shoes as soon as they were back, flung the improvised pack off of her and sank to the ground, exhausted. Ben took Rey’s backpack off his own shoulders, gingerly setting it down beside their tent and plopped down next to her. He grasped one of her feet in his hands and she moved as if to kick him off but stopped when she saw him inspecting her blisters. She let out a shaky breath and pinched her eyebrows down as he gingerly turned her foot over. “You need to have these looked at. We need to find a medical tent.” She got to her feet and Ben shook his head. “Let me help, you shouldn’t walk around here barefoot with open sores; and you can’t wear those,” a gesture to her abandoned sandals, “while we look for help.”

“I can do it,” she tried to respond, that look on her face again and finally his patience, already wore thin from her earlier bravado, completely snapped.

“Hey,” he said firmly, taking her face in his hands. “You already made your point. I know you can take care of yourself. I can help you, if you’ll just let me. You’re not alone, remember?” He trained his whiskey hued eyes on her, as she refused to back down for a moment. But as he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, he watched her resolve begin to melt under the warmth of his genuine concern.

“Fine, but…only until we get my feet patched up,” she relented, still stubborn.

“Okay,” Ben replied, gratified. And then with one swift motion he put a hand to her back and one arm under her legs. She let out a whoop of surprise and her arms flew out to wrap around his neck. “Good. We’ll make better time this way anyways.” He winked at her and she rolled her eyes at him.

She was light in his arms and eventually after she’d gotten over the indignation of him carrying her about, she settled into him, resting her head on his chest. A warmth that had very little to do with the heat of the day began to bloom inside of him. Finally, after wading through the sea of people he found what he was looking for: a large canvas tent with a red plus sign on it. With a grunt he shouldered his way under the flap, looked around, and set Rey down on the nearest bed. A woman with dark hair rushed over after seeing him drop her down.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Kalonia. What seems to be the problem?” the physician asked, not unkindly. Rey held up a reddened foot, the blisters angry and weeping on her skin. “Ah, that would be a problem.” Doctor Kalonia worked deftly, cleaning the blisters on Rey’s heels and the sides of her feet, lathering them in petroleum jelly and covering them in clean bandages.

“All set,” she finally said, patting Rey’s shin.

“And you thought I’d have to get it amputated,” Rey said to Ben who let out a laugh at the joke.

Doctor Kalonia merely looked between the two of them, gave a wry smile and replied, “I think you’ll live. Just try to be more careful.” Rey hopped down and Ben moved to pick her up again, but she shook her head.

“Nuh uh, I told you until we got me fixed. I’m fixed now. I’ll walk back, thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” he replied with a shrug, and then startled to feel her slip her hand in his again. He didn’t think he’d ever really get used to it or how right it felt to have her fingers interlaced with his own.

The doctor walked off to attend to someone else and Rey turned to Ben and pressed on her toes to peck his cheek, stunning him for a moment. “Thank you….I mean it.” He didn’t have much time to react before she was off like a shot, pulling him behind her to get back to their tent and the microbus.

Poe and Kay looked happy to see them, or at least to see Rey, and they handed over a couple of hot dogs that despite being slightly cold at this point tasted wonderful.

“Don’t say I never got you anything,” Poe said with humor in his voice as Rey devoured her hot dog, “I had to trade a very nice joint for those.” Rey responded by wadding up the paper that had wrapped the bun and throwing it right at Poe who ducked it with a laugh.

“As if you don’t have more stashed in your van,” Rey scoffed. “Besides, just _look_ what I went through.” She held up one of her bandaged feet for inspection and Poe wrinkled his nose.

“Gross.”

She gave an affronted laugh and then she latched on to Ben’s arm. He felt her against him warm and soft, and involuntarily his arm shot out to wrap around her. Rey seemed pleased by that. “So, when is this supposed to start anyway?”

Ben noticed now the restlessness of the crowd as the stage in the distance remained empty. Poe began, leaning back on his hands in the back of the bus, “I thought it was supposed to start already, but fuck if I know what time it even is.”

It shouldn’t surprise Ben how woefully underprepared these kids were to be out in the wilderness like this. Or maybe he was just overly prepared, still keyed up with energy as if at any moment he might need to drop everything to defend his life. But telling time was relatively easy at least. So, he glanced upwards, holding his hand up to the sun and worked his way down to the treeline. Rey gave a quizzical look before he said, “It’s about three.”

Kay clapped her hands at the trick, and Poe smirked. “Neat party trick, man. You learn that in ‘Nam?” Ben nodded stiffly, and this only seemed to make the man’s grin broader. “Aww, come on, I don’t bite. Like I said, I don’t give a shit. I hate the fucking war, but so do most of the kids who are fighting it. Seems to me we all got a lot more in common than not. Everyone knows The _Man_ is the real enemy here.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Ben nodded, still a bit raw anytime the war was brought up. Or _conflict_ , he internally rolled his eyes, as the higher ups would say. It was all fucking semantics cooked up by people who had never seen the cost, or maybe they had and just didn’t care. As Ben’s thoughts drifted, he smelled the lighting of a joint in close proximity. The air was so thick with the smell of marijuana among the thousands of people at the festival that Ben had quickly adapted and tuned out the smell, but the fresh scent still caught his notice.

This time when Poe passed it around the circle, he didn’t even hesitate. Maybe it was the atmosphere, or maybe he already had a contact high from being around clouds of smoke sent up, or maybe it just felt good to make choices that were his own for once. He indulged with this group of misfits and felt the aching raw parts of himself soothe for a while.

Time passed like this for a while, the crowd buzzing with anticipation until a voice came over the loudspeaker on the stage. A man, frantic, gazed out at the sea of people before speaking, “ _I was gonna wait awhile, but, before we talked about it. But, maybe we'll talk about it now so you can think about it. It’s a free concert from now on! That doesn't mean that anything goes. But, what that means is we're gonna put the music up here for free. What it means is the people who are putting, backing this thing, who are putting up the money for it are gonna take a bit of a bath - a big bath. That's no hype, that's truth! They're gonna get hurt. But, what it means is these people have it in their heads, that your welfare is a hulluva lot more important and the music is, than a dollar.”_

Free? The thought registered to Ben and he let out a laugh that was drowned by the sounds of hundreds of thousands of people screaming and cheering. He hadn’t even thought that he’d need a ticket when he got to the festival and the thought was frankly hilarious to him. Rey caught him laughing and then he saw her shaking from mirth as well.

* * *

Eventually when it seemed like the crowd could take no more waiting, and the effects of the joint were starting to die down, he watched a single man walk to the stage. He looked out of place on the platform and seemed to be talking to those just out of sight. The crowd tittered and moved as the stirrings of this great festival commenced, all of them eager for something, _anything_ , to start.

“Come on,” Poe called out and gestured for everyone to climb atop the microbus.

“Ooh, it’s finally starting,” Rey said with a smile and Ben held her hand to help her ascend the staircase. His fingertips brushed the denim over her thighs and his breath caught in his throat for a moment. He didn’t have long to think about that though before he was making his own way up and sitting on the bench, pointed toward the stage. Poe had been right; this was a very good vantage point to see the entire show.

The setlist was interesting, full of music that Ben would never have heard grace the airwaves of K2SO Coruscant. It wasn’t exactly his style of music, but everyone around him seemed to enjoy the beat. It felt nice to have _something_ to do at least other than sit around answering questions about Vietnam.

He listened to the man sing on the stage, more noise and sound than words. He felt the music and the swaying and movement of the crowd. Somehow, despite the way that it didn’t make sense in any logical way, it did _feel_ right to him. He watched the man wildly move his hands over the fretboard of that guitar, and Ben knew if he was closer to the stage, he’d probably be able to see the sweat beading off his forehead and dripping down to the wood beneath him.

They whooped and hollered as the man and his sparse band left the stage and on came a figure, draped in a robe the color of peaches in cream. He had a crowd of disciples with him that knelt about as he stepped with thin but strong legs onto a podium before sitting cross legged before the mass. The man, introduced by the MC as Swami Yoda, adjusted his salt and pepper hair and stroked his long-grizzled beard. He spoke in a lilting Indian accent as he addressed the crowd. He talked of “celestial music” and how it could stop the tide of war. Ben thought with some bitterness that he wished that were true.

All the same he listened to the old man’s speech. Kay was in raptures beside Poe and stood to cheer at regular intervals. He wanted to have the same carefree attitude; he really did. It would be easier if he could just be some college kid like everyone else here, with wide eyes watching a Swami preach about music being the death of violence. But he’d seen men of both sides with faces snarling like animals. He’d watched the life drain from the face of a boy who was younger than him. When he’d shot a man in the heat of battle for the first time and seen his mouth turn down in surprise he’d thought of the boy’s mother and his own mother in turn. He’d wondered if Leia would break down if he were shot down and left in the mud. He turned his face to the sky, watching the once clear blue fill with grey, as the crowd around him now joined into a humming chant. Rey’s hand tightened around his own and he looked at her. They communicated with no words and it was if she knew what he was thinking without even having to ask. She settled in closer to him, resting her head on his chest and the warm weight of her pacified him. This was enough for now.

* * *

On and on the music played. Sometimes Ben listened, other times he contented himself with stroking the hair of the beautiful girl next to him. The hours stretched on until the sun was well below the tree line, not that he’d been able to see it for the clouds that gathered menacingly overhead of them all. The stage was the sole illumination for a time.

Sometime after midnight, Ben couldn’t really say how long for certain, he felt a telltale little spattering on his forehead. Then another on his forearm. Another and another and before he knew it, rain had begun to fall in earnest. The performer on stage tried to play through but ended up needing to stop.

“Aw, shit,” Poe said, before hopping down from the side and holding out his arms for Kay who jumped with a little screech. Ben had spent far and away too much time in the pouring rain and tried to grab Rey’s hand too, his hair wet and sticking to his face already, but she stood rooted to the spot. He looked at her as she held her hands to the heavens as the rain soaked her shirt through, exposing the outlines of her small breasts.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she breathed, twirling around.

Ben hesitated. Wonderful isn’t exactly what he’d call this storm. “It’s fucking wet, I’ll give you that.” Rey looked at him and laughed and he felt the corner of his mouth tug up in response.

She came over and took his hand, her grip slick from the torrents coming down around them. Her hair was dripping into her eyes, forcing her to blink a little more often as she looked up at his face. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. “You have such a way with words,” she teased, smoothing his hair back from his face with her hands. “Yes, it’s wet. But it’s also life. It helps the earth to grow.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like your friend down there,” he chided but there was no heat to it.

She playfully shoved him, “Give me just a bit longer. I just want to see Gwen Phasma come on, then we can go back to the tent.”

“Okay,” he agreed, impatient to escape the deluge.

The rain came in stops and starts and finally a willowy blonde came onto the stage during a break in the storm. A blue light shone on her as she started her set list. Around them, Ben saw little wisps of light in the field start to shine. Rey was entranced by the singing on the stage and he heard her sing out every note and every line in time alongside the blonde with enthusiasm.

“ _We shall live in peace someday,”_ the words rang out finally, as more and more lights began to appear in answer. Rey looked around, as if just noticing the sea of light that had surrounded them and stretched out over the entire field. Her breath caught in her throat and Ben walked over, feeling bold. His wet clothes still clung to him as he stepped into Rey’s space. He brought a hand up and felt a stream of warm moisture on her cheek that couldn’t have been the rain.

Ben leaned down and pressed his lips to her cheek, tasting salt from the tears that blended in with the rainwater. The day had gone by in a blur, but now they were alone, and he wanted to savor the feel of her. He felt Rey tremble beneath his touch, shiver slightly at the delicate way he trailed his mouth from her cheek down to her lips.

She was warm as the rain started to drizzle down again around them, and he groaned as her fingers came up to tangle in the mess of his hair. He could get lost just doing this with her as their tongues met. He felt her breath on his face as she broke the kiss.

“Come on, let’s get down,” Rey whispered and pecked him on the lips again before tugging him over the slick surface of the microbus. He slid over the side, jumping to land on the ground beneath, and immediately regretted the decision as his feet sunk into several inches of mud. He swore as he pulled a foot free, hearing the squelching noise as it came loose.

“I fucking hate mud,” he said grimly and Rey laughed, descending the ladder and more gingerly pressing into the wet ground. The scene didn’t improve as the pair made their way over to the canvas tent. It really shouldn’t surprise him, Ben considered, but looking at the devastation that the rain had wreaked upon their little abode was putting him in a foul mood. “Ah, hell” He scrambled forward to look inside and saw that there was a sizable amount of sediment resting right on the bed roll. Between he and Rey they managed to excavate their belongings and he cursed the heavens for pouring down on them in this way. He didn’t know if Rey had been eager to try another tryst after the previous night’s disaster, but now…

“We can just crash in the bus with Poe and Kay,” she said cheerfully, and his hopes descended even further into the godforsaken mud. He resigned himself to his fate, nodding tersely. Rey banged on the side of the bus and the door slid open, allowing her to tumble inside, mud and all.

“Jesus, Rey,” Poe said with irritation, from the far side of the bus. “You’re a fucking mess.”

“Yeah, well it’s damn wet out,” she retorted and beckoned for Ben to hop inside the cramped compartment with her. He did so with slightly more hesitation but was ultimately grateful to finally be sheltered from the rain. The air inside the bus was significantly warmer than without and he noticed for the first time that he was cold. Rey began to shiver as Poe sat up, bare chested, to start tugging bedding from the nest that he and Kay had made on their side of the bus. He tossed a few blankets and a pillow in their direction which Ben caught and started to lay around them. He wrapped Rey up in one of the blankets as he worked and then when that was set, he clutched her to his chest until the shaking started to subside.

He probably would have just been happy to go to bed at that point if he didn’t feel her start to wriggle beside him now that her body temperature was coming back to equilibrium under the heat he gave off.

“What are you doing?” he hissed as quietly as he could in her ear.

“Trying to get these wet clothes off,” she said with a tone that made it seem as if she expected this to be obvious. “You should do that too. We’ll never warm up if you’re sopping wet all night.” And then her hands were on his belt buckle and he felt a heat shoot through his spine and straight between his legs.

“But what about-“

A pause and snort. “They’re naked under there, trust me. Now stop being shy; you won’t be able to get any sleep otherwise.” She made quick work and then was shoving down the damp fabric, or at least attempting to. He took over for her then, knowing that she wasn’t going to give up until his pants were off completely, and lifted his hips to shove his jeans off.

She had been right, of course; it was much warmer without them…But now he had a different problem entirely as he watched Rey take off her shirt now, leaving her in nothing but a bra and her white cotton panties. He gulped, feeling his mouth go dry as she tugged at the hem of his shirt. He felt his face flood with warmth and, fingers shaking, removed his t-shirt too.

“There,” Rey whispered with finality, and he felt his chest erupt in gooseflesh as her cold fingers grazed over the skin there. “Now we’ll be comfortable.” She rolled over and backed into him, the curve of her ass coming to rest directly over his groin. He knew that he was quickly becoming hard, but that only seemed to make Rey settle in more firmly. She grasped his hands and folded them around her form and he reflexively held her closer. Of anything that the VC could cook up, this was true torture, he was fairly certain.

Every time he tried to adjust, Rey would move with him and his frustration only seemed to grow as time passed by. He tried to think of anything that he could to distract himself from the soft warm presence glued to his front. Polite young ladies, Ben thought, probably didn’t appreciate having a hard-on pressed directly to their asses. He tried to let his mind wander to distraction to no avail, and just when he thought that he might just go to sleep he heard a low rumbling noise. Great…Poe snored.

As if this was a cue she’d been waiting for, Rey flipped around and he would have sworn loudly if she hadn’t clapped her hand firmly over his mouth. “I thought he’d never fall asleep,” she whispered into his ear. He quirked an eyebrow at her, her hand still muffling him. “Shh, I need you to be quiet. Can you do that, Ben?”

He nodded weakly and she grinned before removing her hand and quickly slotting her mouth over his in its place. The kiss left him lightheaded. Rey flipped back around to lay like they had before and now began to move against him in earnest and he had to bite down on his lip, hard, to avoid making a noise. This woman was hellbent on killing him.

If that wasn’t enough, she was taking control of his limbs, guiding his hands over her. Not that he was exactly fighting it, mind. He followed her lead as she moved his bottom hand to cover the swell of one breast, encouraging him to grab and gently massage it. His thumb slipped under the hem of her bra, and he gasped a little when he came into contact with a nipple, already taut under his touch. She gave a little trembling exhale as instinct and a day’s longing took over. He pushed the fabric out of the way, alternating between rolling the bud between his fingers and massaging into the round swell. She fit neatly in the palm of one of his overlarge hands, and he wondered how he’d never truly considered the full magnificence of women’s breast before. He felt perhaps he’d wasted his quarter century of a life without really appreciating how soft and supple they could be under his hand. He repressed a moan at the thought, the sound coming out as a slightly strangled huff.

Then she was moving his other arm lower, lower, impossibly lower until his fingers were skimming the waistband of her underwear. The signals going to his brain were being rerouted as she gently pushed his hand a bit further, just enough to force him to explore her soft curls. His hips were now moving in sync with her, rutting against her backside, as with her silent urging he let his fingers move southward to skim over the slick wetness of her folds.

Ben had heard men in the army talk about their conquests in great detail, so he had basic overview of what he would find between her legs, but he’d never really thought about what exactly it would feel like when _he_ was here experiencing it firsthand. A low noise started to build in his throat, harder to stop, as she gave a little shudder under his touch. He brushed over a raised bump and felt Rey convulse slightly, her hips stuttering for a moment.

“There?” he found his words again, whispering the question into her ear in a voice that didn’t sound anything like his own, low, raspy and commanding. She nodded into his arm and that was all the reassurance he needed to continue. He didn’t really have much technique at first and Rey stilled his hand or adjusted him more than once but finally he found a rhythm that made her start breathing heavily beneath him.

He paused in these attentions to drift lower, feeling the heat and wetness come off of Rey’s opening. She squirmed beneath him as he let a finger slide inside of her, testing it. It released something animalistic inside of him as he felt her buck under his touch, and he let a second digit join.

He started to thrust his fingers into her with purpose, reveling in the way that her chest heaved under the cage of his arms. His own heart was beating in a frantic rhythm. She was giving off silent little pants as he curled his fingers towards himself and he responded by enthusiastically doubling down on his efforts. Rey began to quake under him, almost as if she was cold again and he felt her dart her hand over his again. She moved his thumb to cover that bump at the apex of her sex once more and he grazed it with gentle flicks as she rolled her hips with more vigor onto his fingers until…

Oh. _Oh._ He stopped grinding against her as realization washed over him. Rey’s body had gone still under his hands, arching backwards against the firm expanse of his chest, but around his fingers… He felt a fluttering movement, a clenching that made his chest tighten and his breath stop. He’d…he’d made her come. He felt slightly dazed, especially after the memories of members of his company claiming that girls _couldn’t_ finish like men. But now he realized that had all been utter bullshit and a strange sense of calm comingled with a primal pride filled him at his handiwork. He slowly drew out his digits and Rey went limp under him, boneless and content if the happy sigh she let out was any indication.

Ben flexed the fingers of his hand slightly, still covered in wetness and curiosity stole over him. He probably could have just wiped his hand on the blanket, but something inside of him commanded him to pop his fingers directly into his mouth. And the taste was like nothing he’d ever experienced. It wasn’t quite sour or bitter, but something all its own. It served to remind him of the arousal still aching between his own legs, a fact which Rey did not seem remiss to either.

She was turning in his arms, nuzzling into his chest. She crept up to his ear and the feel of her breath sent a strong tingle down his spine. “That was very good, Ben. Now it’s your turn. I still need you to be quiet, okay?” He closed his eyes and nodded as she nipped at the lobe of his ear before moving down and taking a particularly sensitive area of his neck in her mouth. He wanted to swear loudly but he felt her finger press against his lips, stopping his outburst. Then that hand was moving, grazing nails over his chest before slipping like a thief in the night below the elastic of his boxer shorts. He couldn’t help it now as he hissed at the sudden bare contact of her hand, slim fingers wrapping firmly around his cock.

He felt the trail of her lips leave the bruised skin of his neck, exploring his collarbone, before coming back up to whisper, “Now don’t push my head.” He wondered for a moment what she could mean, but Rey was already out of range of his whispers. She nipped at his abdomen and he jerked at the sensation. All the while he had to try and keep himself still as her hand started to pump him up and down.

“Shh,” Rey hissed, lifting her head to make eye contact and Ben nodded his acquiescence. He felt his muscles tighten as she continued to map the terrain of his abdomen with her mouth and then she was tugging him loose from his boxers and...

_Holy shit_ was all his mind could conjure as he stuffed his fist into his mouth. Rey worked a stripe from stem to stern with the flat of her tongue and he had a hard time discerning if he was still awake or if he’d actually fallen and hit his head after jumping off of the top of the bus. Because there was no way that this could be real. No way that this creature was crouched with her pretty little mouth on his cock.

He gripped the blanket that lay underneath them with his freehand as she teased at his head and fuck. He wasn’t going to last very long at all with the way that this was going. When she took him whole into her mouth he bit down hard and could feel that familiar tension building again. Rey bobbed up and down in an overwhelming cadence of sensation, twisting her hand at his base as she did so. He was going to be ruined for anyone else after this girl, he was sure. He was certainly ruined for the rudimentary work of his own hands now, in any case.

When he felt the precipice approaching, he felt his hand shoot down to the top of her head and _now_ he knew exactly what she had meant as he consciously fought the urge to press her down. Instead, he ran his hand through her hair and tried to tug her back upwards, signaling his impending release but found resistance. He tried to bring her up once more, but she paused only long enough to shake her head before returning. And then it was too late. He felt his groin seize up as he reached his peak and fell over the other side, cock pulsing. The waves of pleasure spread rapidly out from his pelvis, blanking his mind out until he melted into the bedding, completely spent.

His hands were still playing at Rey’s soft damp locks as she tugged up his boxer’s once more, patting the planes of his hips as if to say _Job well done_. She floated back upwards, collapsing on top of his chest and he let out a soft “oof” in response to the weight atop him. Rey nuzzled at his nose and he enthusiastically rushed in to kiss her, catching her by surprise. He flicked his tongue out and tasted himself on her lips. He couldn’t help but let out a low moan at this and he felt her shake a little bit. She was silently laughing at him and he found inexplicably that he was joining her.

Their mirth was interrupted by a rather irritated voice coming from the other side of the bus, “If you two assholes don’t knock it off, I’m kicking you out into the rain again. Some of us are trying to sleep.” Ben felt his stomach lurch at Poe’s warning, but Rey merely released a loud giggle before rolling off of his chest. She turned in his arms and he curled and molded himself around her. Very quickly Ben felt himself drift off in a haze of exhaustion and overwhelming contentment, the rain still beating like a drum on the metal roof above them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we have smut! 
> 
> A few fun Woodstock things  
> \--  
> Yoda is a parallel for Satchidananda Saraswati who did address the crowd at Woodstock
> 
> Gwen Phasma is a parallel for Joan Baez. 
> 
> The concert really was made free and that's the actual speech they gave to the crowd. They didn't have the fences erected in time because of the constant changes in venue. The organizers were stuck with a hard choice, finish the stage or finish the fences. They opted for the stage and the rest is history. Woodstock would swell to over 400k people, but because they couldn't collect tickets, no one really knows how many people actually attended.


	4. Who'll Stop the Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I have finished this chapter at 13.7k words, and I have a few thousand words of the final chapter written already.
> 
> I got a bit angsty in this chapter, but it definitely levels out by the end.
> 
> And there will be smut in this chapter!
> 
> As always, thanks to [jessavandangante](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessavandangante/works) for beta reading this. She's on [twitter](https://twitter.com/darthjessa) too.
> 
> Thank you to [ Debbie ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/generaleia/pseuds/generaleia) for the killer moodboards she's made for me. You should go commission her on [ twitter](https://twitter.com/driversputa) if you're in need.
> 
> \--
> 
> CW;  
> Minor character death in flashbacks and signs of PTSD
> 
> Ben experiences a panic attack. If you're not interested in reading that stop reading at "It turns out the big slide" and pick back up at "It took them a while". It's also sectioned out with dividers. I will put a summary of that part in the end notes if you're curious to know what happened.

_Early June 1969_

Ben could barely hear anything, could barely grasp the situation. He was aware of a few things though. The first was that he was lying on his back in the mud. The second was that there was a searing pain on the right side of his face. That feeling alone might have been enough to completely wipe out anything other than the third thing. And the third was that there was something heavy on top of him. Then the next thing he knew he was being dragged backwards out from the heavy thing by his armpits. He tried to struggle out of the grasp of whatever had him, kicking madly and thinking it was the VC, until he heard a hoarse shout that brought a bead of recognition to his brain. His vision was clouded as _hot_ and _wet_ stung at his eye and streamed down his face, making it impossible to see. But he knew Tai’s voice. At least he thought it was Tai.

“Ben, you need to get up,” another tug on his torso. He was dazed. Words were not easy, and he twisted to see his friend’s face. He looked strained, the normally happy twinkle of blue eyes was dull and dim with fear and anger. Why?

“Tai?” he rasped out.

“Dammit, someone grab him!”

Then he was being picked up, all two hundred pounds of him being slung over someone’s shoulder like a potato sack. Was it Hen? He couldn’t tell because his eye was quickly gumming shut. His other eyelid felt heavy and it was a losing battle to keep it open.

“Dammit, get us air support, now! We were fucking ambushed,” he vaguely heard the voice of his CO. “It was a goddamn trap!” The words were coming in and out of focus. He heard each one, turned it over in his head, but the meaning of all of them strung together wouldn’t register. Then the world started to go a bit fuzzy at the edges.

He was being jolted about. He was hearing the tinkling of metal. Someone was yelling.

“Get this fucking thing off the ground now!”

“Solo, buddy, you’re gonna be okay.” He tried to turn his head to the voice, but it was held in place. A face swam before him, in and out of focus. He felt something sharp jab into his arm and groaned as something stung him. Or did he groan? He thought so but couldn’t tell.

“I gave him some morphine, but that’s all I can spare until we land.” The pain in his face which had overwhelmed his senses began to abate after a time, but so did everything else. He couldn’t keep his eye open, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except surrender to a dark abyss of nothingness.

* * *

There was a ringing in Ben’s ears. He was only aware of it tangentially. As his brain started to send out signals that he was indeed awake he sent feelers out to his limbs. His toes still seemed to be there, his fingers were in working order, his chest. It rose and fell, but with a sharp pain in his side if he tried to breathe too deeply. He worked his way up to his face which felt…heavy. All of his limbs felt like they were weighted by lead, but his hands slowly, tentatively drifted to his face. He felt an obstruction and tried to open his eyes. Only one fluttered open, the other was packed beneath the whatever it was on his face. He tried to scrabble and claw at the mess with his fingers but felt a strong vice over his hand, stilling his motion.

“Don’t-don’t do that.”

He looked over and saw. Tai. Yes, it was Tai. He was sitting next to a bed, his bed, with dark circles plaguing his eyes and stubble covering his normally pristine chin. “Hey,” Ben started, his voice coming out raw.

“You’re awake,” Tai said, relief evident in his tone.

“S’pose I am,” Ben replied, agreeing to the statement. What was awake though? He remembered fragments, shreds of detail coming back to him as he struggled to clear the fog of his thoughts. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital…back on base,” Tai offered. “The doctors won’t tell me shit, but best I could gather is you took some shrapnel to the face. A few broken ribs too. But uh, you’ll heal up.”

A thought in the torrent of disjointed recollections occurred to him and he willed his vocal cords to rasp out, “Hen? Where’s Hen?”

Tai’s face fell, and with that Ben knew. He didn’t need the confirmation that Tai choked out, “Hen…Hen’s gone, Ben. He-he-he’s going home.” Ben blinked his one good eye stupidly. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Hen’s DEROS was only a few short months away. He was supposed to leave, write letters to Tai and Ben from his home in Missouri while they both waited their own turns. He was going to get engaged, married and invite them to the wedding while they all relentlessly teased him about his obsession with beat poetry.

As if on cue, he saw a bustling nurse come over to the pair. It took a moment to register Voe, because her face was puffy and swollen, as she tried to maintain an air of professionalism. “I-I need to check your vitals,” she said stiffly as she came to Ben’s side and saw him awake. He felt her slender fingers take his wrist mechanically. She looked at her wristwatch, a familiar oversized thing that was not meant for a woman’s slender arm, and she blew out a long wavering breath as she attempted to focus. Voe worked as quickly as was possible as she took his blood pressure and his temperature. Ben did his best to cooperate but no sooner had she finished jotting down her findings on the clipboard that was stuck at the end of his bed, she turned and practically fled.

“Don’t…” Tai said at Voe’s swift exit, clearing his throat as emotion began to cloud it, “Don’t take it too personally. She’s that way with me too. She’s a bit…”

“Yeah,” Ben said softly. “What. Um. What….happened?”

Tai blew out a breath, pinching his eyes shut as if the memory physically pained him. “I don’t know, man. I just…We were marching, and the rain stopped and then the next thing we knew Charlie was on us. I think….I think they were waiting near the village. They knew we’d be coming after the air raids. It was an ambush.” Tai was shaking a bit as he said it. His voice broke and paused. Ben could see some wetness forming in his eyes, but his friend blinked rapidly before continuing. “They, uh, they pinned us down and then they were sending mortars at us. Half the platoon is gone. Hen…it looked like he’d pushed you or…or something.” Tai stopped then, the effort of retelling too much and he looked resolutely at the linoleum tile of the army hospital.

“He…pushed me,” Ben repeated, his head spinning slightly as he strained his thoughts. Yes, he could see. Hen had shouted at him and then the man was flinging himself. Ben was thrown to the ground and the explosion had sent metal shards flying. It was his fault. Hennix was dead because of him. The knowledge took Ben over like an aluminum can being crushed in someone’s fist. He was having a hard time breathing. He sat with Tai in silence until another nurse came over and ushered him out of the medical wing.

* * *

_Early July 1969_

“Ben,” he heard his name and knew that it was Tai but didn’t look up. Tai was back in fatigues and was out of breath if the heavy breathing was any indication. It had been nearly three weeks and Ben’s face was still swollen and heavy, but the bandages had come off, revealing a nasty line of stitches from his right eyebrow down to his jawline and partway down his neck.

“What is it, Tai?” Ben asked, his voice coming out sharp now. He regretted his tone after the words came out, but his friend did his best not to look too affronted.

“We just got orders. They’re sending our platoon up the river.” _Our_ platoon. Ben wasn’t part of that platoon anymore, not while he was holed up here, stuck in a hospital bed. He’d never felt more useless than he did now with his injuries as they were and his brothers… _brother_ , he mentally corrected himself, being sent to a different post. Ben was silent, sullen in a way that he’d reserved only for his parents, never Tai or Hennix. But now it was just him and Tai. He would forget sometimes, slipping in his recollections, and then remembering the harsh reality. He’d remember when he’d see the occasional glimpse of Voe. She didn’t speak to him, but he could feel the weight of her eyes on him when she caught him staring. He remembered when Tai would come in, trying to fake his cheerfulness. And he wanted more than anything to not remember. So, he shut down. It was the only thing that made him feel functional.

Tai waited for a long while as Ben refused to respond, and then he backed away. “I’ll-I’ll send you a letter, until…until you come join us.” The words were said hopefully, but Ben could hear the undercurrent of sadness in Tai’s voice. Ben stiffly nodded, eyes resolutely set upon his rumpled bedclothes. And then he heard the sound of Tai’s retreating footsteps.

_You just have to make it out of here, you just have to get back in the field_ , he thought. But life is cruel, and war is crueler. Ben would never join Tai, and his friend’s letter never came. Instead, several things seemed to happen all at once.

He was eating runny oatmeal several days later or trying to eat it at least. He didn’t have much of an appetite these days. Then a letter addressed to PFC Benjamin Solo was thrown on his lap. It was in his mother’s elegant looping script. He looked up from his disaster of a breakfast, his eyes widening in recognition, and barely had time to bring his hand up in a salute.

“At ease, son,” the voice of the commanding officer of _his_ commanding officer, Major Ackbar, said and Ben nervously brought his arm down. “I wanted to deliver this personally.”

“Why?” he said dumbly. The only advantage of the army had been that he carried a certain level of anonymity that he didn’t get to enjoy back on American soil. It was a surprise that anyone in the higher echelons of the military would take _any_ notice of him.

“Your mother…” the Major trailed off, and now Ben understood. “She’s been in contact and…Well, you’re going home, son. Your service was almost up anyway, and your injuries are…. sufficient…to warrant a medical discharge.” Ben was numb to the news that he was actually leaving as the Major continued to bluster something about _“wouldn’t look good”_ and _“give a little something to those pansies in congress”._

He didn’t really hear most of whatever the man was saying. When Major Ackbar paused though, he felt his voice come out of its own accord, “But what about my platoon, sir?”

This stopped the man in his tracks and he asked, “Which is that, Private?”

“Bravo Two One,” and this seemed to spark recognition in Ackbar’s eyes. He cleared his throat and nervously looked away.

“Son, that platoon…that platoon has been…retired,” the Major looked away, and didn’t give any other explanation. Ben just sat in infuriating silence until the Major walked away, probably feeling as if he’d done his duty. Ben returned the goodbye salute perfunctorily and stared at the envelope, still unopened on his lap. He wouldn’t get the answers he wanted from it, and so he angrily set it aside. The higher ups never gave good explanations. He knew that “retired” was not a good thing, though. He knew that only happened when…. When the platoon wasn’t coming back, but the army couldn’t definitively say they’d died. His mouth went dry at the thought.

As the days passed into weeks, his stitches were removed, and his ribs were deemed mostly healed. He pestered the records office with increasing vehemence for any word about his platoon until after one particularly vulgar outburst they threatened him with a court martial. After that, he sat alone most of the time. Voe still couldn’t stand the sight of him, but every time she did look it was like her eyes said “Your fault. Your fault. Your fault. Why are you here when they are not?” And that wasn’t something Ben could handle. It got easier when they finally released him from the hospital. He might only catch a fleeting sight of her in the mess hall.

He didn’t have orders or plans other than a vague discharge date. So, Ben spent much of his new downtime in listless contemplation. That was truly the worst thing. The days were easier when he pretended that everything was fine, though. When he packed all of those thoughts into a little box in his mind and didn’t take it out to examine them. As his departure from Vietnam loomed ever closer, it became easier and an outsider might even think he was just fine.

* * *

_Saturday_

_August 16, 1969_

Ben stirred, his nightly ritual of plaguing thoughts fleeing in the light of another day. Nights were truly the worst because he couldn’t control his mind like he could in his waking hours. He felt around and furrowed his brow to find that he was alone. He opened his eyes and shot up, looking around. It was the inside of the bus and Rey was…He heard a chorus of female giggles coming from outside and squinted out the window. There he spotted Rey and Kaydel with hands planted in the mud. They were bent down at an angle, hands spread wide and for fuck’s sake, Rey wasn’t even wearing clothing. She was still in the bra and white underwear from when she’d stripped off everything but her skivvies the night before. Her tanned skin was glistening with water droplets from the light drizzle.

Ben felt around and grabbed his jeans, the fabric still heavy with moisture, and tried to pull them back onto his legs. He wrestled with the denim, almost wishing he had the freedom to just leave them off at this point. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and headed out the side door.

“What the hell is going on out here?” he asked as Rey grinned up at him, her body twisted in ways that really couldn’t be comfortable. They’d moved on to some sort of standing pose now, and Ben was thankful that at least her ass end wasn’t sticking up in the air anymore.

“It’s yoga,” she said, as if it should be obvious. “You should join us, Ben.”

“What the fuck is yoga?” he asked before patting his back pocket to find his pack of cigarettes. He was wholly disappointed to find the entire package sodden and wet.

“Kay, baby, you want to explain to the nice man?” Poe called and Ben nearly jumped as the shorter man seemed to appear from nowhere. Poe was smirking and holding out his own cigarettes in Ben’s direction. Ben took one gratefully as he tossed his own soggy package back into the bus interior.

“Gladly,” Kay said, stretching her arms to the sky, winking at Poe and then turning her attention to Ben. Her tone was haughty and playful, as she explained, “It’s a spiritual practice going back thousands of years in India. Your mind and body must become one.” Another stretch and a lunge as Rey followed behind her.

“And, boy, don’t I feel fucking enlightened,” Poe replied with cheek, blowing out a plume of smoke. Ben covered the end of his cigarette with his hand as Poe held out a lighter for him.

“Any reason you can’t do _yoga_ in clothes?” Ben asked, arching a brow. Rey swooped upwards from where she was trying to touch her toes, her hands caked in mud. She walked over to him and reached out to touch his face until he swerved out of the way as she let out a laugh.

“Why, Ben, you’re not _uncomfortable_ are you?” she asked, mock sweetness dripping from her words. “Because I’m _just_ trying to get a little bit of exercise, and it would be _so_ much more difficult to _stretch_ with all those layers on.” His face was heating up the closer that she got, and he felt his ears grow red. “So, are you, Ben?”

“Am I what?” he asked stupidly, the thoughts in his head halted as he tried to not stare.

“Uncomfortable?” Rey repeated, now inches from his face.

She had him. He knew it. She knew it. He knew that she knew that he knew it. “No.” He refused to admit defeat to this half naked girl, despite the blush still highly apparent on his cheeks.

“Good,” she said, and he felt a wet pat on the side of his cheek where she’d placed a mud covered print before going back to Kaydel’s side. He roughly scrubbed the grit from his skin before falling back against the side of the van.

He’d known her for two days now and she was already more than he could handle. She was untamed in her passion and was probably the exact opposite of the girls he’d met at the pre-law cocktail mixers in his undergrad. The girls his mother had always planned for him to meet, date, get a white picket fence with and subsequently have two point five children and a dog. Not that those girls hadn’t been _nice_ , he conceded, but most of them wouldn’t be caught dead doing _yoga_ in a muddy field in their undergarments. Rey, on the other hand, just exuded an air that said, “I don’t give a shit what you think, and I dare you to make me.” It was overwhelming and intoxicating at the same time.

“Is she always…” Ben trailed off in an undertone as the girls began to do backbends in the loam.

“A pain in the ass?” Poe asked, a soft chuckle following. “Yeah, that’s Rey. But she’s also a good kid. You know she volunteers at the soup kitchen in the Haight every weekend? Hitches all the way from fucking Oakland if you can believe it. I try to give her rides when I can.” Poe flicked his used cigarette away from him where it buried itself in the mud, “Says she likes to help the kids who show up. Wants ‘em to know they have a friend if they need one.”

“That’s…wow.” Ben watched her in the mud with new appreciation.

Poe caught his eye in his peripheral, and Ben turned back to the man who had a meaningful look on his face. “I try to keep an eye on her for Finn. I figure she’s a big kid though. Just…be good to her, man. Don’t give her a hassle and we’re good.”

“Is this _the talk_?” Ben joked and Poe sported a wide grin in return, the tension of the moment momentarily broken.

“Nah, I don’t give a fuck about _that_. Maybe try to keep it in your fucking pants when I’m trying to sleep though?” And with that, Poe clapped him on the shoulder once more and went back to observing the girls.

It wasn’t long before the rain began to come down again in buckets and Ben shook his hair out like a dog as he tried to keep it from dripping into his vision. The girls eventually gave up on trying to do any more meaningful stretching and were instead splashing around in the puddles. This wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured this weekend going by any stretch and he was fairly pessimistic about ever truly being dry again.

Their little group finally piled haphazard into the protection of the bus and Rey, smothered in mud, crawled over top of Ben to reach the little pile of dry goods that had been cleverly hidden away. She pulled a bag of goldfish crackers out and started to munch at them with vigor. This seemed to remind everyone else in their group of their own hunger and then the spoils were being divvied up amongst them.

As Ben ate a twinkie for the first time in three years, the spongecake tasting heavenly in comparison to the dried dog food rations he’d subsisted on in similar rainy conditions, he watched a little boy come charging through the rain. A few more children in various states of dress, some only clad in the skin they were born with, tumbled and dove into the mud.

Before he could comment on the lot of them mucking about like a litter of piglets, the group had spotted the open door to the bus. They zoned in on the food that was being passed around and like opportunistic magpies the children hurtled pell-mell toward them. Rey let out a shrieking laugh as the first little boy scrambled up into her lap as if he’d known her forever.

“Aww, they’re so cute,” Kay said as their group more than doubled in number with the addition of the small bodies. Ben tried to delicately extract his arm from the muddy grip of a little girl who was missing her front teeth.

“Are you hungry?” Rey asked, pulling the little boy in her arms into a snuggle.

“Yeah,” they all chorused as if rehearsed.

“There ain’t no food,” the boy said boldly, and Rey’s eyebrows furrowed at his lisping statement. She turned to look from Ben to Poe, her eyes pleading.

“Nuh uh, no way,” Poe blew out in an exasperated tone. “You know the little savages have probably already shaken down everyone else on their way here.”

“How can you be so heartless?” Rey cried out, clutching the little boy to her chest. “Just-just _look_ at them!”

Ben was inclined to agree with Poe, but when Rey gave him a look, he broke and surrendered over his second package of twinkies to her with a heavy sigh. She doled out quite a bit of their rationed food to the children. Ben didn’t think he’d ever seen food disappear so fast. And then the little boy was inviting her to come see the “big slide” with the rest of the rag tag group of children. Rey readily agreed, pulling a white loose tunic over her head, and dragged Ben along for the ride.

* * *

It turns out the “big slide” was actually a muddy hill that people were flinging themselves down, sliding like the penguins he’d seen at a zoo once with his parents. There was a large puddle at the bottom to catch their fall and the people were wearing a slick groove into the earth with each pass.

“Just look at it,” Rey said her voice breathless with excitement as the little boy she was holding hands with tugged her forward. She whipped around to grin at Ben who looked less enthused about the muddy slip n’ slide. “We have to go.”

“Uh, you can, I’ll just…watch,” Ben replied, not particularly in the mood to willingly go into that much mud.

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun, I promise,” Rey said. “Did the army never let you have fun?”

“Not generally,” he retorted wryly. “Just…just go, okay? Maybe later.”

“Ah, you spoilsport,” was Rey’s response as she waved dismissively, being tugged more aggressively by the little hand. She bobbed into the crowd of people lining up at the top of the hill and he felt something in his stomach tighten a bit as she disappeared from his immediate view.

Ben felt the crowd seem to tighten in around him and he nervously tapped his foot or tried to if it weren’t for all this goddamn mud. His hand dove into his back pocket, searching for his cigarettes. He found nothing but pocket lint and lamented leaving them back in the bus despite their damp state. His hands began to shake a bit without a cigarette to help him cope. The rain started to come down harder around them, and his eyes darting around for any sign of Rey.

Finally, he saw her as she flung herself, white tunic and all, feet first down the hill with a screech of delight that he could hear even from this distance. She barreled downwards, slipping along the slope, and splashing into the mud pit. He could see the look of excitement on her face, the telltale laugh that made her shine like a spotlight in the crowd. There was some relief to the feeling of dread inside of him at just catching a glimpse of her again, but it was soon eclipsed once more. God, if only he could just get a dry smoke, he knew that he’d feel better. He breathed in through his nose and he could feel his heart pounding as if he’d just finished PT.

The rain kept on coming down steady and he tried to distract himself and that was when he heard it. The sound of an army helicopter. He’d recognize it anywhere, he was certain. It only served to whip his anxiety into a real frenzy like the air stirring beneath those chopper blades. He buried his face in his hands as his chest tightened. His breath was ragged in his chest. No. Why were there helicopters here? They shouldn’t be here in this muddy cow field. A whirl of thoughts, each less likely than the last went through his head and then he felt an arm tugging him forward.

His feet were moving without his permission and he felt dazed as he realized it was Rey, pulling him up the hill her hands leaving muddy prints on his forearm. He tried to say something, but his throat felt dry and closed off, and his tongue felt like it was twice as big as normal. He could barely hear her as the sound of the helicopters intensified overhead. He could see them now, descending some two-hundred or three-hundred yards away from them. His heart nearly hurt with how fast it was hammering in his chest. How could she not see helicopters?

He could finally hear Rey again, but her words were coming out muffled like he had cotton wadded in his ears. “-know you’ll love it, just give it a try-“

And then he was at the top of the fucking hill and he could see the mud puddle at the bottom of the incline. “No.” The word came out raw as he finally found his voice, but he repeated it louder pulling firmly from her grasp. “No, I don’t want to go. I hate mud.”

“How can you say that if you won’t even try?” she pleaded and was gripping him tighter, pulling his stubborn feet through the slippery terrain.

“I said no!” he practically shouted, and this brought Rey up sharply, as if she was just now noticing how violently he was trembling. Her grip loosened and the smile on her face withered. She nodded weakly, but that was when he heard a loud bang in the crowd. If he hadn’t already been on a knife’s edge, he might have realized it was someone pounding on a metal pot to bang out a drum beat as the rest of the crowd joined in a chant. But as it was, that was what set him off entirely and he whipped around, searching for cover. The field around him was no longer filled with peaceful hippies, but in his mind, only full of potential death.

He couldn’t find anywhere to hide, but his sudden motion was enough catch both he and Rey off balance. Then he lost all sense of orientation. His feet had betrayed him in the slick muck and Rey had been hanging onto him too tightly to do anything but hurtle down the hill with him. His feet were first up, then down as he flailed wildly, trying to find any purchase to stop the rapid descent. A cold splash met him, and he couldn’t breathe, only taking in mouthfuls of sludge. He was underwater for a moment, and then he was bursting out of the pool. He only managed to catch a glimpse of Rey who looked horror-struck, bringing a hand to cover her mouth, before the wet earth started to sting at his eyes, blinding him slightly.

And the crowd was around them, and he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He wanted to curl into a ball, but his heart was still pounding.

“Bad trip?” he heard an onlooker ask, the words not really registering as he tried to catch his breath. He just needed air. He needed to not be surrounding by a million-goddamn people. And he needed to not be covered in fucking mud. He saw an opening in the crowd and let survival instinct and training take over, dragging himself out of the sludge and only chancing a glance back to Rey who looked confused and scared.

He found a small clearing at the outskirts of the crowd, or at least where he wasn’t completely shoulder to shoulder with anyone else. He crouched down, his head plunging between his knees as he tried to just breathe. The pressure in his chest was slow to subside, but finally he felt like his chest could expand again after some minutes. He had very few words, most of them expletives as he ran his shaking hand through his now filthy hair.

He heard her before he saw her, panting out, “Ben, what…what was that? Back there? What happened?” He tried to fight the urge to look at her, because he didn’t want to see _whatever_ it was that they had been building together turned to stone cold fear. He didn’t think he could bear it. But his curiosity eventually got the better of him and he glanced over. She was just standing there, waiting for an answer. But he didn’t have one easy enough to tell her.

“I don’t know, it’s…never happened before. But…I told you I didn’t want to go,” Ben said finishing more harshly than he had meant to in an effort to shift the focus of the conversation. He started to pace, pausing only to spit grit and mud out of his teeth. “I tried to warn you. I didn’t want this to turn into a huge fucking hassle.” The rain was coming down now in a steady torrent around he and Rey, but it didn’t disguise the way that she was on the verge of tears at his ruthless words. Her hair, coated in mud, hung lank and wet in the summer downpour as she reached out to touch him.

“Ben, I’m- I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” she said softly, and he could pretend to not hear her over the pounding of the water around them if he wanted to. But that wasn’t what he wanted. Even now her hand was arm and gentle on his arm and he could feel his tense muscles begin to relax in response. “I promise you, I would never have-“

He stopped his frantic pacing, his heart rate starting to deescalate, and looked at her hard. With shaking hands, whether from nerves or from the chill of the rain, Rey closed the distance between them and cupped his face. Ben closed his eyes out of reflex and let his forehead fall against hers, smearing mud on their skin, but he didn’t care.

“Will you let me,” she said softly, her voice cracking before she tried again more firmly. “Will you let me fix this?”

“What if…what if you can’t?” he asked, his voice small. “What if I’m…broken?”

“I’d like…” Rey replied, sucking in a sharp breath. “I’d like to try. Let’s just start by getting clean?”

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat, and said thickly, “Okay.”

* * *

It took them a while to find anywhere suitable to clean themselves of the grime, and by then the rain had stopped temporarily. Thick clouds still hung overhead, but the heat of the day was taking over and making steam rise from the wet peat. Ben’s thighs were chafing from the sopping denim that rubbed incessantly over his legs, and he felt bone tired now. Finally, after wading through the crowd, and yes, even more mud, they found a river that looked like heaven.

“Okay, let’s…let’s get this dirt off,” Rey said, looking up at him. He could only stare dumbly at her for a moment before quickly averting his eyes as she took off the tunic dress, followed soon after by other…things. He only tried to find her again when he heard the splash of the water signaling that she’d entered. She was looking at him in amusement, her head just above water, and it only made his cheeks flush even warmer in embarrassment.

“Ben,” she called, breathless as she tread water.

“Hmm?” he called out, not sure if she could even hear him.

“Ben, if you want to get clean, you need to take your clothes off…please.”

“Yeah…” Ben replied weakly and he looked around, his gaze falling on a sparse bush near the water’s edge. His eyes darted around to ensure that no one else was around and he stripped the heavy fabric off of himself as quickly as possible. His boxers went next, more reluctantly, but he stepped out of those as well. Ben glanced around the bush where Rey was still watching him, expectantly. “Can you…can you look away?”

She looked like she wanted to interject with a teasing remark, but evidently thought better of it, swallowing it with a sigh. He heard splashing as she twirled in the water and then she called out, “Okay, I’m not looking. Happy?”

He didn’t respond; he merely just covered himself as well as he could and barreled into the water. The cool water felt wonderful on his skin, his normally pale shoulders already slightly pink from their trek in the temperamental sunlight. “I’m-I’m in now.”

His feet were as firmly planted as they could be in the river’s floor, but a stray current could have easily carried him away as Rey swum to his side. He was struck then with the realization that for the first time in their mutual acquaintance with one another that they were both completely naked. He hoped the thought didn’t show on his face. She hovered very close to him and he could feel her breath ghosting over his face.

“So,” she said, and he could see where sweat and rain had left tracks through the grit and dirt staining her tanned skin. “Can I help you?” Ben nodded and sank down to her level in the water as she brought her hands up to his hair. Rey swum around his back and gently coaxed him to lower his head. He closed his eyes and let out a low hum of contentment has her fingers carded through his thick hair, nails gently scraping over his scalp to release the remnants of mire and filth.

She traced over the lines and planes of his face, letting the river wash away the mud and he relaxed into her touch. Ben still felt utterly exhausted from whatever had happened in the mud pit, and soon he found himself stilling with the gentle current until he was floating on his back. He was weightless in the water, anchored only by Rey as she pressed gentle lips to his temple and then to his nose and then leaned forward to graze over his open mouth. It was slow and sweet, and he missed her when she broke the kiss.

“I’m going to get myself clean now, okay?” she told him softly and he nodded, pulling himself from his peaceful suspension in the water. Ben ran hands over his hair, pressing the excess water out as he slicked it back. He righted himself, bobbing in the shallows, as Rey dove underwater. He caught a glimpse of her bare ass as she made the descent and despite the fatigue, he still felt his cock spring to life as if it had a mind of its own.

Rey emerged, gasping as water rippled over her naked body, and Ben caught himself staring. He knew he’d been staring too long when Rey caught his eye. He reddened as she made eye contact, the water barely waist deep around her. He made to turn away, to give her privacy as she bathed until he heard her call out his name.

“Ben,” she said it firmly, but with no heat that might suggest she found his voyeurism unwanted. His eyes drifted up to meet hers, lingering on the sight of those pebbling pink nipples that he had only felt in the darkness the previous night. “You _can_ look at me, you know. If you want to… I don’t mind.”

He felt that heat on his face once more, but now he felt it building in his groin too with new ferocity. That was the moment he found something inside of him that had nothing to do with his “proper upbringing” or “polite manners”. He found his gaze drawn to her body, every curve and soft swell captivating him in a way that could only be described as primal. It was a heady sensation as she saw the obvious want in him and deliberately slowed her movements. She drew her hands across herself with long flowing movements, letting the river water reveal the freckles that graced her shoulders.

When she was as clean as him, she swam over, crowding into his space. “Ben?”

“Mm?” There he was, back to monosyllabic responses like a caveman. An outsider observer might seriously question if he’d ever _actually_ studied pre-law at NYU given his lack of eloquence around this girl.

“Before we go any farther,” she pressed on, running a hand over his dark hair and tucking a fallen lock back into place, “I need to know something. Do you-do you want me?” He tilted his head in confusion at her heretofore uncharacteristic insecurity. He was fairly certain his desire for her was beyond question given the fact he’d done a pretty good job of making an ass of himself over her. “Because,” she sucked in a breath, rambling, “I seem to be doing all the chasing, and I thought it was kind of cute at first. I still do, actually. But, no one else is here to tell you what to do though. Not your mum, not the army. Just me. So, I have to know if this isn’t what you want. I need you to tell m-“

Ben had been mesmerized by her full pink lips and he cut her off then by surging forward and kissing her. Her surprise was momentary until she melted into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He could feel her breasts pressing over his chest and was fairly certain she could feel _exactly_ how much he wanted her. He brought a hand to her lower back under the water and his fingers climbed her spine making her noticeably shiver in his grip. Ben had never wanted _anyone_ more in his entire life. Their mouths moved in sync, Ben feeling much surer of _this part_ at least, and he tasted at her bottom lip before they parted.

“God, Rey,” he said, his heart racing now for a much better reason. She floated there with him as he struggled to gather his words. “I want, I want-“

“Yes?”

“Last night, that thing you did….I want you to show me how,” he finished and the corner of her mouth tugged down.

“Have I…misread things? Because if so, you’re being very confusing…” she said slowly.

“Oh, no. No,” he said, feeling that shyness start to creep back in. He rushed to get out the next few words before his courage deserted him. He could and had stormed hills, chased the VC from foxholes and thrown himself in the line of enemy fire, but somehow the simple act of talking to a girl was where he lost his nerve. Absolutely typical, Solo. “Iwanttodothattoyou.”

“What?”

“I want you to show me….how to do that to…you,” he repeated slower, involuntarily pinching his eyes closed. To his surprise she began to laugh, and he looked at her with a wounded expression.

She immediately stopped, but he was already grousing out under his breath as he looked away, “Well, if you think it’s a joke…”

“No,” Rey replied, turning him to face her once more. “No, I don’t think it’s a joke. And I’m actually rather inclined to take you up on the offer. It’s just that in my experience, men don’t usually…want…to do that.”

“Why?” he asked the question so bluntly and he could see her trying not to giggle again. He practically whispered the next words, “I liked the way you tasted….” When he looked back up again there was no trace of amusement left on her face. This time it was replaced by a hungry expression that practically made him dizzy with its intensity. She kissed _him_ this time, grasping his face and probing his mouth with her tongue. She tasted sweet to him and the warmth of her mouth contrasted with the chill of the river. He did something impulsive then and gripped around her legs, standing to his full height to walk them out of the river. Rey wrapped her legs around his waist, maintaining the fervent movement of lips and tongue.

“Ben,” she sighed into his mouth and it was like a drug being injected right into his veins. He broke the kiss only long enough to look around. The riverbank was dotted with foliage and he knelt down in the cover of a wild hydrangea bush, its white blossoms shedding onto the grass beneath it.

Ben left fevered kisses on her lips and moved to copy what Rey had done to him the day before, nipping at the column of her throat. She let out a throaty little noise for him and he clamped down just a bit harder, eager to make her repeat it. Then he was traveling southwards, leaving behind a reddened spot on her neck. He was absolutely drunk on the sight of her beneath him in the grass. He leaned back on his heels as he let exploring fingertips graze over her nipples. Her head fell back, eyes fluttering shut at the contact and if Ben was the god-fearing sort, he might have even said it was a religious experience. His hands became surer of themselves, imitating his only previous experience with Rey and then he was struck with a mighty need. He surged forward, laving his tongue over the taut bud. Rey arched her back and started to squirm beneath him. He pressed open mouthed kisses on her sternum and continued to drift downwards.

“Ben,” Rey repeated his name, this time coming out as a breathy whine. “Please.” He skimmed over her hip bones with his nose and lips and worked his way to her the tops of her thighs, circling around his object nervously.

“I-I don’t know what to do exactly,” he admitted softly, pausing. “How do I know if…if I’m doing it right?”

Rey propped herself on her elbows and looked at him softly. “I’ve never exactly done it before myself,” she said, “but do you remember where you touched me last night?” He swallowed thickly and nodded. How could he forget? “Just…focus on that spot. I’ll-I’ll let you know if it doesn’t feel good.” He gave another quick nod of acknowledgment before gently parting her knees and readying himself. He felt like a bundle of nerves as he moved his lips from her knee, to her inner thigh to the mound at the apex of her thighs. He ghosted his breath over top and then summoned the mettle to plunge forward. She was pink and shiny, glistening in the sparse sunlight. As he licked a stripe from the opening of her cunt to the top where that raised bump was, he didn’t think that any amount of Hustler or Playboy he’d gotten his hands on would ever have been enough to prepare him for the thrilling moan that she made for him. Or the way that her taste exploded on his tongue. Ben then tried the same tactic he’d done on her breasts and she tense, saying quietly, “Not quite so hard.” After that, he darted the tip of his tongue out to give gentler flickering swipes and when Rey responded enthusiastically by curling her fingers tightly in his hair he continued.

He slipped a finger, and then another inside of her and, Christ…. The noises she made, that _he_ was causing her to make, were intoxicating. It took a bit of trial and error with the addition of his fingers to the mix. If he was being totally honest, it was a bit like rubbing your stomach and patting your head simultaneously. But then after an interminable amount of time, when he was sure that this was the most exercise his tongue had ever had in twenty-six years he felt her fist in his hair tighten almost to the point of pain.

“Oh, god,” she said in a breathy whisper, “Ben, don’t stop. I’m going to-“ and then it was like there was an invisible string attached to her sternum that pulled, and pulled hard, as she seized up underneath him. Her legs tightened around his ears and he didn’t think he’d ever heard anything so beautiful as the sounds of this creature in ecstasy. Ben privately thought that if heaven truly existed, he would have the opportunity to cause those delicious noises every day from now until the end of eternity. He brought his hand out of her and back to the ground, steadying himself on all fours over top of her before collapsing down to lay at her side.

Rey looked over, completely debauched with glassy eyes and panted, “Are you sure you’ve never done that before?”

He cleared his throat, trying not to hum with pride as he pulled her limp form to his chest. She didn’t resist and he picked a few stray white petals from her hair. “I’m…I’m a fast learner, sometimes…when I, uh, want something.”

“Somehow,” Rey replied, resting her chin on his chest to look at him properly, “I can’t bring myself to mind.” She curled into him then and Ben was more than content to just lay with her like that. And he did, at least until some minutes later when the sounds of splashing interrupted their quiet respite. Ben was happy for the cover that the bushes provided as five or six other hippies had the same ideas about the river as they had.

“Should we…?” Ben started trailing off as the sounds of splashing and raucous laughter echoed around them.

“Mmm,” Rey replied, her voice sleepy as she dozed. Ben gently and reluctantly extricated himself from her and peered around the foliage to locate their clothing. The pile of abandoned garments, luckily (a real first for him it seemed), was not that far off and he reached out to grab the sopping clothing. It was all still covered in mud though, but Rey took her filthy tunic, retreating just a way down the riverbank to swish it in the shallows. That seemed to loosen most of the muck, although it would be perpetually stained Ben thought. She pulled it over her head nonetheless, after adjusting her bra back over her breasts. Ben would have mourned the loss of the sight of them if he wasn’t preoccupied with his own clothing. His boxers were wet but thankfully still wearable; his jeans on the other hand…Well, suffice to say they’d seen better days. Even after pulling them through the stream, he couldn’t wring enough water from them to coax them back over his legs.

“Maybe we set them out in the sun and see if they’ll dry that way?” Rey suggested and he sighed, knowing he didn’t have many other options.

* * *

“So,” Rey asked as he leaned against her legs nearly an hour later. He was enjoying the feel of her playing with his half-dried hair as he propped himself on his elbows. His pants were slung over the hydrangea and he hoped that maybe they’d be wearable soon. But for now, this was okay. “What did you do before you joined the army?”

Ben picked at a blade of grass absently, rolling it between his thumb and index finger. “Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t know, Ben. Conversation, maybe? The thing you do when you like someone and want to know them better?” He jerked his head around to look at her and she tutted at him, gently turning his head back so she could continue working. She’d plucked several wild daisies from the surrounding riverbank and was determined to entwine them into his hair. He had been too relaxed to bother fighting her off and she was…persuasive. “Not all of us can spend the day in dark, mysterious silence.”

He opened his mouth and shut it again, feeling slightly defensive. “I’m not dark _or_ mysterious. I’m just…not very good with words.”

“I think I’ve gathered as much,” Rey teased, gently scratching his scalp and he let his head fall back into her grasp. “So, tell me about before the army.”

He blew out a breath, “Well, I already told you that I went to college.”

“Okay, college. Where did you go, what did you study, did you have friends, did you like it there?” She fired off each question in quick succession, a friendly exasperation in her tone. “Give me something to work with.”

“Fine, fine,” he said, and he felt himself smirking a bit. How could it be so hard to talk to her at times and other times it was like he’d known her his entire life? “I went to NYU. Pre-law. I didn’t really have many friends. And I don’t know, I guess I liked that it was away from my parents. The city’s pretty big so…I don’t know, sometimes it felt like I could just get lost.”

“Did you like the people?” she continued her line of questioning, her fingers moving skillfully.

“Not really,” he admitted. “The place was full of a bunch of over-ambitious pricks with their noses in the air and every conversation is ‘ _My father’_ this or ‘ _Harvard or Yale Law’_? Insufferable assholes, really. They’re…they’re nothing like you.”

He heard her blow out a breath, whether it was a laugh or a sigh he couldn’t tell without looking, but her fingers paused in his hair for a moment. They resumed and she asked, “So are you saying I wouldn’t fit in with your fancy college friends? I’ll have you know, I can run with a very sophisticated crowd when I want to.”

“I told you, I didn’t have college friends,” Ben replied. “And I couldn’t give a shit one way or the other. My friends…my _real_ friends would have liked you.” He got very quiet after that. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to say it. Maybe it was how relaxed she was making him with her hands dancing through his hair, or how much the rain and the mud had dredged up the last few days. Either way the walls he had worked to build before leaving Vietnam were cracking, and things were slipping out.

“Army…friends?” Rey asked softly.

“Yeah,” was his one-word response. The conversation was in danger of drifting back into uncomfortable silence until he cleared his throat and asked, “So, you said you go to…Berkeley, right?”

“Yeah,” she brightened a bit, “I do.”

“What are you studying there?” he tilted his head back to try to look at her as she answered.

She stared ahead for a moment then made eye contact with him, “I’m studying education. I want-I want to be a teacher.”

“Going to teach the youth of America how to overthrow the capitalist pigs? The best way to light a Molotov cocktail?” he teased and was rewarded by a sharp smack on his shoulder. It stung the pink, slightly sunburned skin but she still laughed at his joke.

“Maybe,” she replied, amusement in her voice. “Maybe I will. _Someone_ ought to. But, in all seriousness…I-I want to help kids out. Be there for the ones that need somebody.” Ben grabbed the hand on his shoulder quickly and she let out a little gasp of surprise but didn’t pull away as he tugged it gently forward and pressed his lips to the back of it.

He turned to look at her, seeing that aching loneliness in her eyes so similar to his own, “I think…that’s great, Rey. Really.” The corner of her mouth tugged up at his words, a little pink even creeping over her face at the endorsement. Then a gentle spray of rain signaled that Ben’s pants would truly _never_ be dry again. He sighed heavily and stood in his boxers to pull the jeans from the hydrangea bush. He attempted to shove his feet into the leg holes, but the unruly fabric refused to cooperate.

“Maybe we should see if we can find you some other clothes?” Rey proposed. He grimaced slightly at the idea of walking around in his drawers, and Rey seemed to sense his reservations. She grinned a bit, before saying, “Or we could just stay here in the rain all day. Come on, Ben, rip the plaster off.”

* * *

“I don’t know why I let you drag me out here,” Ben grumbled, clenching his fists and staring resolutely as the ground.

People moved around them and Rey chided, “It’s not that bad, I promise. Besides, you have more clothing than a lot of people.”

“And I’d prefer to keep it that way,” he muttered under his breath. Rey’s tinkling laugh showed that she had heard him.

They were making their way back to the bus, or at least in the direction that Ben _thought_ the bus was with his eyes glued to the ground. Rey with her limited sense of direction agreed that they’d come from this way originally. The crowd was disorienting, and Ben already missed the mild respite they’d had in the river. The rain fell over his bared torso and it was if the day couldn’t decide if it wanted to be hot or cold. Both he and Rey’s feet were already covered in a thick paste of mud again as they tromped over the ground.

“Hey, look!” Rey said suddenly and quickly swatted at his arm to get his attention. He took his eyes off the muck covered trail to look at a line of little trailers and makeshift booths set back some fifty feet into the tree line. He could just make out wares of all varieties laid out in the pop-up bazaar. “We should look and see if we can find anything.” Rey’s tone brooked no argument and Ben sighed as she hauled him over to the marketplace.

He watched her flit around to every stall and booth in the area, and he actually found her childlike exuberance…endearing. This booth was selling pot, _of course_. Another was selling tabs of acid. He’d heard of it, but never tried the stuff himself. This one was selling glass sculptures that Ben frankly was amazed had even managed to make it into this quagmire unharmed. Still another booth was peddling art pieces. Frankly they were a bit beyond him, and he wondered if perhaps any potential buyers would need to be heavily under the influence of some sort of drugs to full appreciate the rippling colors on canvas.

“Ben, come here! Quick!” Rey called as he tore his eyes away from the swirling painted pictures. He wandered over to where Rey pointed happily at a string of t-shirts that hung on a line and strongly resembled the oiled canvas he had just left.

“Aren’t they a bit…colorful?” he asked, his nose crinkling in mild disdain.

“They’re tie-dye,” Rey said, waving her hand dismissively, “And beggars can’t be choosers. Do you want a shirt or not?”

Ben thought for a moment and a part of him strongly leaned towards _not_ , sunburn be damned. But eventually the stinging skin on his shoulders won out, and he let out a derisive noise from the back of his throat before fishing his wallet from his ruined jeans. “It’s probably too much to hope they’d have pants?”

“We d-d-d-do,” the man behind in the trailer said, his words skittering out as he looked over Ben’s tall form. “But maybe not f-f-f-for your size.”

“I’ll take anything at this point,” Ben replied, happy to pay the man for _anything_ that might return a shred of his dignity. He paid the merchant and in the end the man handed over one of the colorful shirts and a worn pair of corduroys that Ben at least conceded wouldn’t end up covered in mud (if only because they didn’t quite reach his ankles). He caught sight of himself in a stray mirror and the let an amused exhale escape his nose. With the wild daisies that Rey had braided into his hair, the “tie-dyed” t-shirt and the too small corduroys…he blended right in with this crowd of peace-loving flower children. Rey looked him over, her brows furrowing in concentration, but apparently, he passed her scrutiny because her face split into a wide grin. “What?”

“You actually look… pretty fab, Ben,” she said, and he let out a laugh before grabbing her hand. They continued to explore the stalls and Ben watched as Rey bartered for a headband which she promptly shoved on his head. “To keep your hair out of your face.” And he discreetly purchased a bracelet that Rey had been admiring. It was made of little wooden beads that looked like they’d been hand carved. She practically sent them both flying into the mud with the force of her kiss after he presented it to her. He held her suspended in the air for a moment, enjoying getting lost in her lips.

Sometime in their wandering the roar of Rey’s stomach forced them to actually make their way in earnest back to the bus. Surprisingly, they were greeted with wrapped packages being thrown at them as soon as they were within ten feet of the orange vehicle.

Ben caught one deftly, but his large hands squished what turned out to be a…sandwich? “Where did this come from?”

“Nice threads, man. Suits you,” Poe replied with a grin. “Anyway, bunch of people were going around handing out food. You two are lucky that Kay likes you so much.” Kay beamed smugly and Ben unwrapped the slightly squashed ham sandwich. Ben was having a newfound appreciation for the at very least consistent availability of food he’d had in the army.

“Ith ‘at ‘ut ‘uh ‘eliopur wuh a’oo?” Rey asked, her mouth already practically full to bursting.

“Jesus, Rey, use your words,” Poe shot out with a smile.

She swallowed thickly, glaring at him, “I _said_ , is that what the helicopters were about?” She gestured to the sky and Poe looked upward thoughtfully.

“I dunno,” he replied, scratching his chin. “We were a bit…preoccupied. But we heard the sound guy say that they were here to help. Probably didn’t want to cause a riot. Anyways, sounds like the music is getting ready to start.” Ben nodded, lost in thought. He now felt…foolish, for whatever episode he’d had earlier in the mud pit. Of course, it hadn’t been the VC in the middle of New York. Rey exchanged a look with him, and he felt a gentle squeeze on his hand. He loaded himself into the van, enjoying the respite from the alternating sun and rain, and just listened to the sounds of the music drifting out.

Sometime in the early afternoon, Rey pulled him bodily out of his place of protection from the elements to dance with her. Poe joined with Kay as a sensual Latin beat began to float over the crowd. Ben didn’t think he’d ever heard anything like it as Rey took his hands and spun in circles on the soft ground. The sounds of tambourines and bongo drums enriched the melody as the crowd indulged in the music. Rey held her arms aloft as she danced closer to him, their hips moving in sync to the beat. His fingers grazed over her thighs, brushing the tanned skin there under that tunic dress that was still slightly damp. She puffed on a joint, and not for the first time Ben wondered just _how many_ of these were stashed in that bus. She held it to his lips, and he puffed on it, blowing the smoke up to the heavens as the electric mood of the crowd infected him as well. Rey twirled for him like a muddy fairy and stroked his face as the lead singer crooned out, “ _I’m gettin’ tired of waitin’ and foolin’ around…”_

The rest of the day seemed to pass in a slightly stoned haze of euphoria. The rain came and it went, only making the mud worse. When it was a torrential downpour, the four would hide inside of the bus, huddling for warmth. When it was dry, Ben would watch Rey dance with Kay. This usually would devolve into a fit of giggles from the pair. He dozed when he was tired, the exhaustion of the morning still affecting him, or the music wasn’t to his liking. Sometimes Rey would join him for short stints where he would enjoy the taste of her lips in the lazy heat. He couldn’t say when he’d had a more bizarre weekend but somehow Ben couldn’t truly bring himself to care.

The day slipped into dusk which slipped into evening in this same fashion and before they knew it Poe was ducking his head into the confines of the bus to get Ben and Rey’s attention. Ben drew away from her lips, his natural shyness having abandoned him sometime around the third joint of the day and Poe merely grinned.

“Hey, we’re gonna see if we can’t get closer to the stage for the Dead,” Poe directed at both of them, and then looked at Rey, pointing his cigarette directly at her. “Don’t smoke all my stash.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she waved dismissively, flopping backwards against Ben’s chest.

“Why do I even fucking bother?” Poe grumbled and threw up his hands, but there was no heat behind it as he and Kay flitted off.

“What are ‘the Dead’?” Ben asked casually, looking down at Rey from where he was reclined. She turned in his arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

“The Grateful Dead?” she asked skeptically. “You’ve never heard of the Grateful Dead? They’re only Poe’s favorite band. I think they’re the whole reason that he drove us cross-country.”

Ben shrugged, “I don’t…I don’t get out much.”

Rey snorted at this, “Clearly.” She got up, stretching as much as she could, given the low ceiling of the van. “Well, come on. It’s time for you to get an education.”

It turned out “The Dead” were another band that Ben could live with or without. To be sure, they were…enjoyable, but he was far more preoccupied with the girl sitting in his lap. There were long breaks in between the songs that allowed for Rey to crawl onto him. She was absently picking out the flowers that she’d braided into his hair earlier. Most of the braids had already fallen out throughout the course of the day anyway.

She had pulled him up into the bucket seats of the microbus and he could see and hear the band pretty well from this vantage point without the nuisance of the falling rain. Sometimes they talked during the set, but mostly they just let the music wash over them.

“So, is that what you people listen to?” Ben asked at some point after the band had finished a never-ending set and the next performers were well into their own lineup. He silently admitted that the music on stage was more to his tastes now.

Rey backed up to look at him. He was smirking and she caught his subtle jab. “You _people_?” she scoffed playfully. “Why, whatever do you mean?”

“You know, hippies,” he pressed, poking a finger into her side. “I guess I’m no expert, but you actually thought those guys were good?”

“Hmm,” she considered, “Well, _Poe_ thinks they’re rather decent. Besides, it can’t have been all bad. I caught you tapping your foot not two minutes ago.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he conceded, holding his hands up. “I guess _this_ is alright. Better than whatever we listened to for the last hour.”

“Poe will be devastated to hear your assessment,” Rey said dramatically, “But, I suppose you’re entitled to your opinion. Myself, I sort of agree. I like Gwen Phasma better at any rate.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “You seemed pretty stoked the other night.”

“Well,” Rey replied, thoughtfully. “It’s just that she’s really trying to _say_ something with her music. You know, that’s why I learned to play guitar?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I thought maybe _I_ could say something. Maybe people would listen. Then I started to have fun with it. Plus, the music scene back in the Haight is…well it’s something else, really.”

While the group on stage was finishing up a song, he was struck by Rey’s words as she continued to chatter about Haight-Ashbury. They were a reminder really. She lived on the opposite end of the country and their time together was tied to the life of this festival. Tomorrow it would be over and that meant the end. The end of this weekend, the end of this festival and the end of…

“Rey,” he said quietly, his hand stroking through her hair as it fell in loose brown curls around her shoulders.

“Mmm?” she hummed out in question as she melded into his touch, pausing in her idle musings about San Francisco.

“What happens tomorrow?” The words were soft, imbued with meaning and she stilled. It was as if she was considering it for the first time too. As if it hadn’t even occurred to her that they were on borrowed time.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, and he was looking out the windshield at the lights flashing in the dark. “Tomorrow. What happens…with us?” He watched her bite her lip, waiting in the stillness of the microbus cab. Several emotions seemed to cloud her eyes as he listened to the sound of their breathing. Ben opened his mouth then to cut through the awkward hush and then suddenly Rey’s lips were covering his own and swallowing any sound. For a moment his thoughts scattered, and he was kissing her back fervently. The intensity of her mouth moving over his allowed no other reaction. Her lips were hurried now, not the listless blissful kisses of earlier that day.

He broke the kiss finally, desperate for breath, but Rey was already swinging a leg over him to straddle a top his lap. He could barely hear the band start again in the background over the blood thrumming in his ears, _“I’ll put a spell on you….because you’re mine.”_ And he did feel as if she had enchanted him, body and soul.

“Rey,” he breathed out, exerting all of his willpower in his distracted haze to get the word out.

“Mm-mm,” she shook her head at him to stop the conversation. “Ben, I don’t really want to think about tomorrow. I can’t. Tonight…Tonight is the only thing I can handle right now.”

“But-“ She stopped him by pressing her lips to him again.

“No. Not right now, okay? I don’t know what will happen in a day or two days or a month. But here and now, I know what I want.”

She held his gaze as he heard the words slip out of his mouth, “What-what do you want?”

She let a small amused huff out as she cupped his face. “Tonight, Ben, I really really just want to fuck you.” He was pretty sure his heart stopped at her words. A finger traced over the bridge of his nose and settled on his lips. “We’ve been dancing around this for three days, Ben. I’ve been patient, but now is the time to decide. Do you want to fuck me too?”

Ben’s mouth went bone dry. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he attempted to swallow, the effort taking everything. Then he was nodding, all thoughts of the following day gone from his mind.

“ _I ain’t gonna take none of your…foolin’ around…”_ played in the background.

He leaned forward, his arms going around her back to pull her into him. His mouth was hesitant, but soon picked up on the frantic urgency mirrored by Rey. She was moving back and forth on his lap, rubbing over his now growing erection. He paused for a moment, muddied recollections of a conversation he’d had with his father years ago dancing over his mind. “Wait…”

Rey paused, heeding his call and both of their chests heaved with the interrupted passion. “What-“

He wanted to swear at the realization he was coming to, but the sensible part of his brain would not be silent. “I don’t…I don’t have anything. Protection.” It was true. His father had given him a lone condom and a speech about ‘not wanting any surprises’ before he had left for college. Ben had dutifully kept it in his wallet throughout his undergrad, until it had left a circular ring on the leather. Sometime in Vietnam he’d thrown it out after looking at the little numbers on the package. It hadn’t taken a rocket scientist to know that it was long expired, and in any case, girls were the farthest thing from his mind in the jungle.

Rey considered his words and then her mouth turned up into a smile. “That’s…that’s okay, Ben. I’m on the pill.” He blinked a few times and she continued with wry amusement, “Just one of the many perks of being a _married_ woman.” They laughed a bit at the absurdity of it all, and then the temperature seemed to rise by several degrees as she leaned toward him and whispered into his ear, “Besides, wouldn’t you prefer to feel the _real thing_.”

“I’ve never wanted anything more,” was his only response, and he couldn’t help the groan that left him. He rucked up her dress and pulled it over her head with ferocity. His large hands splayed over her for a moment, fingers on her collar bones and she shivered at his touch.

Ben worked his fingers over the mud stained material of her once white bra. He hooked into the straps that went over her shoulders and slowly drew one and then the other down until they hung limply at her sides. His eyes were full of hunger and heat as he gazed at Rey’s face. She nodded and then his hands circled behind her, clumsy fingers trying to free her from the lace prison as quickly as possible. After several seconds of vain struggle, he wondered what sadistic asshole had made these so damn hard to get off. Rey began to shake a bit, from mirth he assumed, when finally, he felt the damn clasp come loose. The bra fell from her front and she looked at him with a smile as he looked reverently at her in the moonlight. The smile vanished as he impulsively swooped forward to capture one of those pink nipples in his mouth. Rey let out a gasp of surprise as he swirled a tongue over the bud. He teased it until it hardened and then turned his attention to the other as Rey continued to make soft groans of pleasure.

“God, Ben,” she sighed and the sound of his name from her lips was like a bolt of lightning down his spine. “You’re quite eager tonight.”

She threaded her fingers in his hair as she continued to grind on him. His grip found its way to her hips to help her move in rhythm. She let her hands wander to the collar of the tie-dyed t-shirt, tugging at it gently. “I think,” she said breathily as he paused in his ministrations, “that you’re rather overdressed.” He removed his hands from her just long enough to lift them overhead, allowing her to pull the cotton off and throw it carelessly into the back of the bus.

Rey let out a little puff of air as her eyes looked at him greedily. “I don’t think I’ve yet told you how much I appreciate _this_ ,” she said, her fingers tracing over the firm planes of muscle that made up his chest and abdomen.

“I guess,” he joked, and by god somehow his brain still functioned enough to joke, “the army is good for something after all.” The humor helped disguise the little tremble in his voice as the enormity of what they were about to do really hit him. It didn’t, however, hide the goosebumps that prickled over him at the contact.

He returned the gentle touching, brushing her hair back over her shoulders and Rey reached up to grip him. She brought his palm to her lips and kissed, then drew his fingers over her lips. He let out a hiss as she let her tongue dart out and then the tips of his fingers were disappearing into her mouth. He’d never really thought of his fingertips as an erogenous zone prior to this moment, but that opinion was very quickly changing as she sucked them gently. She slowly drew them from her mouth and traced his fingers down over her sternum and her torso until they were ghosting over the front of her underwear.

“I need a little bit of time to get ready,” Rey said, the words coming out as a soft, husky whisper. “You’re…quite big.” His face flushed in color, but his insides were puffing and swelling with a primal sort of pride. His nervousness seemed to vanish, and he was eagerly pulling aside the fabric and stroking along the slick wetness between her thighs. He let his fingers slip inside her for the second time that day and watched as her head lolled backwards, eyes fluttering shut.

Rey let out a little moan as she began to bob up and down on his fingers. He curled them towards himself which made Rey’s brow furrow as she let out a little cry. Ben moved his thumb to make deliberate little circles over her clit and his chest heaved as if he’d been running as he watched her.

They continued on in this fashion until Rey gasped out, “Ben, keep going. Right there. I’m going to-” She couldn’t get out the final word as her whole body spasmed atop him. He could feel her clench on his fingers before going limp. Her forehead rested on his shoulder and he drew out his hand, evoking a tiny shiver from Rey.

Ben cleared his throat, “Did you-did you still want to…” he trailed off. “I didn’t know if you wanted to since you just…finished.” and Rey, bosom still rapidly rising and falling looked at him for a moment before a sly smile tugged up the corner of her mouth. She righted herself in his lap and then took his face between her hands.

“Ben, I’m going to let you in on a little secret about women,” she maintained the eye contact until she was certain she had his undivided attention. “We can do _that_ … _more_ than once.”

Holy shit.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d very much like for you to take your pants off now,” she said and then with deft movements she had threaded the button of the corduroy pants through its loop. The zipper came down quickly and then Ben was lifting his hips to tug down his pants, boxers and all. He was perhaps a tad overenthusiastic because he bucked Rey right into the steering wheel. The car let out a loud honk which startled both of them.

Ben wanted to sink down into the fabric of the bucket seat, but Rey brought a hand to her mouth as she erupted in giggles. He found himself laughing too after the initial wave of embarrassment wore off. She pressed a quick kiss to his lips, silencing him, before wiggling about to pull her underwear off of herself, first one leg, then the other. His heart hammered as nervousness filled him once more.

“I-I don’t think I’ll last very long,” he said after an anxious swallow.

“It’s okay,” Rey replied, hovering over him. She pressed a hand over his chest, feeling the rapid beat under his ribs and then she leaned forward. “Shh, it’s okay. I’ll be gentle.” She winked a bit and then was kissing him. He almost didn’t notice her grip his cock, positioning it until it was firmly nudged right at her warm, slick entrance. He held his breath as she began to slowly sink down on him, taking him inch by torturous inch.

“Fuck, Rey,” his breath came out in a sharp gasp as she bottomed out.

“That’s the idea,” she quipped, but it came out as throaty sigh. She held herself in place for a moment as if sensing that he needed to get his bearings. Or maybe she did as well as she adjusted to the feel of him inside of her. Was it always meant to be this tight? “I’m-I’m going to start moving now, Ben,” Rey said and stroked his face. He nodded in reply, dazed, and that was all the encouragement she needed to hook her arms behind his neck, gently moving herself back up his length. She came back down with a quick snap that had him releasing a raw noise from deep in his chest. His hands fell to her hips once more, fingers digging into the soft flesh as he guided her up and down after that. His body was relying purely on instinct at this point, his brain no longer supplying cues.

Ben let out a string of incoherent, rambling praises mixed with several profanities as Rey rocked herself back and forth. His hips canted upwards to meet her and she let out a cry.

He paused, trying to think straight, “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

The words were panicked but she merely shook her head, her eyes still tightly shut. “No, no, I’m fine. Keep going, Ben.” He nodded, losing himself once more in the sensation. He watched in awe as she brought a hand down to touch herself, rubbing tight circles at the apex of her thighs as he continued thrusting. Ben would later look back on this moment and reflect that Rey had utterly ruined him for anyone else. He might also muse that after having experienced sex for the first time, he couldn’t fathom how anyone managed to go about living normal lives when this was possible. He could do _this_ every moment for the rest of his life and be perfectly content.

That pressure started to build once more, exacerbated by the mewling noises Rey made as they worked in a synchronous rhythm. Ben buried his face into her neck, kissing up the column of her throat as he choked out, “Rey, I think I’m going to come.”

“Just-just a little,” she panted, whining out the words, “longer. Please, Ben. I’m so close.” He nodded, tightening his arms around her as he tried to hold on as long as possible. He could feel the edges of his point of no return approaching. Then that same quivering that he’d felt around his fingers was happening around his cock as Rey let out a feral yelp of pleasure. And that was all that it took. He couldn’t stop himself any longer. His hips stuttered erratically, giving one last purposeful thrust as he was emptied. His mind was in freefall, blissful climax the only thing he could comprehend.

Finally, moments, minutes, maybe hours later Ben found himself back in his own body, slumped backward in the bucket seat. His limbs were lethargic, and his mind was too blissed out to care. Rey reached out, pushing a damp strand of hair off of his forehead as she peppered him with soft gentle kisses. First on his forehead, then down his face, moving over his scar and finally finding his lips. He licked at her lip and she met him in the middle, their tongues moving slowly, affectionately over each other. Ben was consumed by a feeling of deep serenity as he pulled her to his chest, burying his nose in her hair.

After a time, his cock began to soften and she extricated herself from him, his spend dripping from her thighs. He let out a low breath as Rey rolled off, but then let it fade into a sigh of contentment as she merely turned to sit on his lap.

She leaned into his chest, tenderly nuzzling into the divot where his chest met his shoulder as she drew little lazy circles in the hair over his sternum. “So…how was it?” Her question came out self-consciously and Ben let his hands stroke a reassuring line up and down her back. She let out a little hum that was practically a purr as he tried to find the words to describe the experience.

Finally, he said the only thing that came to mind. “I think I want to do that again.” Rey snorted and Ben returned it with a broad grin as she brushed her nose against his.

She rested her forehead against his own, and he drank in the sight of the smile that tipped up her mouth. “I think that can be arranged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW Summary: Ben's panic attack was brought on by stimuli that reminded him of the war. He and Rey both ended up covered in mud and she apologized for putting him in that situation. She offers to try to help remedy the mud situation at least.
> 
> \--
> 
> PTSD as a term didn't come into popular usage until the 1970's, largely due to the Vietnam War. It wasn't officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association until 1980.
> 
> The governor of New York threatened to send the National Guard in to break up Woodstock since it was nearly 10x the expected number of attendees. He ultimately didn't. Instead, army helicopters brought doctors and fresh medical supplies. The townsfolk of White Lake also pitched in and sent sandwiches and hardboiled eggs to feed the masses.
> 
> Rey and Ben dance to "Evil Ways" by Santana. And he loses his virginity to "I Put a Spell on You" by none other than CCR.(Yes, I recognize I have a problem)
> 
> Birth control wasn't readily accessible to all unmarried women until 1972, but the Supreme Court ruling made it legal for married women to obtain contraception in 1965.
> 
> \---
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and next time I post I'll be wrapping this fic up in a neat bow. This is a HEA story and I think it's going to have a sweet end.
> 
> I appreciate all of your comments and kudos. I love reading them!

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on The Twitter™ [here](https://twitter.com/_RamboBrite_). I post fanart, chapter announcements and other Reylo content.


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